


On the Edge

by zanni_scaramouche



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: American Harry Styles, Anal Sex, Angst, Athlete AU, Athletic Sex, Based on Real Events, British Louis, Do not try this at home kids, Edging, Figure Skater Louis Tomlinson, Fluff, Hockey Player Harry Styles, I promise you it’s better, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Accidental Sports Related Death, Olympics AU, Please See AN for more on TW, Pleasepleaseplease use more lube, Your crash course on all things ice, and you get a condom!, condoms for all!, didn’t want to add that but well, minor mention of eating disorder, we be in Canada buds, welcome to the world of figure skating, yes that’s a tag, you get a condom!, you’re welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:42:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 47,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27587638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanni_scaramouche/pseuds/zanni_scaramouche
Summary: Figure skating is as vital to Louis’ identity as his DNA, so when his skates go missing right before the last Olympics of his career there may be a meltdown only vanilla bath salts can fix. Well, that and the stupidly charming hockey player he met on the plane.Harry’s too old to be the wonder kid and too young to be taken seriously in the NHL. As an alternate thrown in at the last second, he fights to prove himself on the national team at the largest sporting event known to man. Or he will, once he gets off this flight and can focus on something other than the fussy figure skater and his stunningly blue eyes.A baggage mix-up skews both of their perfectly laid plans for gold, forcing the two to work together as the clock clicks towards the minute they’re expected to shine on centre ice.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 93
Kudos: 299
Collections: Bottom Louis Fic Fest 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Written for BLFF Prompt 392: Winter Olympics AU with hockey player Harry and figure skater Louis._
> 
> I tried my hand at something new with dual POV! I wanted to dig into teaching people about the sports even at the slight cost of slowing the pacing. Although it’s set in 2010 I kept most modern tech (iphones and facetime) from modern reality because… tbh I forgot! This is much more fun than my last BLFF fic and plays into some well set tropes, hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Figure skating saved my life & I grew up with the sound of Hockey commentators as my lullabies. We had a homemade rink in the back yard for all the cousins (I was the youngest so I had the prized position of ‘zamboni’ with a wet mop, aah good times). This story is not much but it means a lot to me. I felt very honoured to write about my favourite boys in my favourite place doing my favourite sports. What a treat. Very self-indulgent mentions and name drops thrown in here. 
> 
> I couldn’t write a fic titled on the edge… and then not include edging? Like duh. 
> 
> Thank you to Mia for the first pass read and M for elevating my writing once again into something worth reading. xx  
> 
> 
> *****Please check the second chapter AN for more detail on the tags and TWs, of which there are a few!!*****

### PART ONE - WARM UP WEEK

⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

##### Louis

The world is still. Curtains hang limp in dark windows and cars sit cold on curbs. The air is frozen in time. Two slaps of his feet against the dusty sidewalk take him under the bleak light of a street lamp before he returns to the dark. Another three steps and he’s once more haloed. He spares his watch a glance and pushes for faster, harder, further. 

Every muscle strains as the lights continue to flash by. His lungs must be aching with the way he’s gasping in time with the pump of his legs. He doesn’t feel a thing. He sprints to the end of the block, and then the next, and still there’s another row of houses exactly like the last in front of him. He’s a toy soldier in an endless maze of suburbia. 

Not until his feet stumble does he stop, he can’t risk injury. That would be stupid. This is stupid, but he’s known that since he started and yet he still ends up here every night. Hands to his knees he pants, big, gasping, ugly things. The noise echoes around the dull houses with eerily square hedges. He wipes the sweat from his face, holds the stitch in his side, and turns around. Heavy steps start his journey back to where he came. 

As the sun pricks the far horizon his trainers meet the front steps of his childhood home. Stale sweat has chilled him, his flesh raised like a plucked chicken. The shower tap gets turned to scalding and he keeps himself there until the purple hue of his skin has shifted to mimic the angry glare of a sunburn. He towels off in quick strokes and jams himself into a copy of every outfit he owns: joggers and a t-shirt. 

Mum is humming something in the kitchen when he toes downstairs. She’s taking her time at the fridge so Louis slides around her to the steaming kettle. He grabs a well worn travel mug from the dish rack and tosses a bag in, pouring in enough hot water to reach the rim. His mum picks up the weightless kettle when he puts it down and clicks her tongue. 

“That was meant for me.” 

“Early bird ‘n all.” Louis shrugs.

He ducks around her to the fridge and grabs one of the seven identical containers. His eye catches on a pot of yoghurt, squinting with idle debate before he shuts the door. He can’t afford anymore stupidity today. 

“When’s your flight tomorrow?” 

“Eight.” 

His mother hums. She opens the fridge and something about the smack of the seal breaking for the third time this morning makes Louis grind his teeth. 

“We’ll finally have room in here, can you imagine?”

His mum smiles at him with the milk in hand. Louis frowns. There’s always room in the fridge, but then he catches a glimpse of the glowing shelves behind her and sees rows of his meal prep containers stacked along the middle two shelves just as they have been for the past eight years.

“Ah! Mum,” he scolds when the closing door stops blocking his view and he catches her pouring milk into his travel mug. 

“Oh c’mon luv, little splash won't hurt,” she chides good naturedly. “You used to love it so pale.”

Louis scowls and stomps around her to the sink. The tea bag plops sadly in the empty basin as he dumps the whole thing down the drain.

Now it’s his mother's turn to scowl. “Lou, I would have drank it if you didn’t want milk so badly.” 

Louis rinses his mug and leaves it back on the drying rack with a clank, going around the worktop to reach for his hooded jumper thrown over the back of a chair. 

“Simon says I can’t do dairy anymore. You know that mum.” He fights his way into it while he speaks so he doesn’t have to see her face. 

He jerks the hem down so his head pops through the neck to find his mum’s face is still pinched from the mention of his coach. It’s been four years, she really should have gotten over this by now. 

“I’m hardly poisoning you,” she insists, not for the first time. 

Louis rolls his eyes and grabs the food filled container he got out earlier. She doesn’t understand he’s competing in a sport won by .05 of a mark. A splash of milk is not just a splash of milk. Surely his mum can fill in the silence from the numerous occasions they’ve already had this conversation. 

“Gotta go,” he mutters while twirling towards the door. 

He jams the container into the rucksack left on the bench last night and shoulders it, then hefts a baby blue bag from the hooks habitually onto his other shoulder. His socked feet slip into Adidas sandals and he’s out of the house barely half an hour since he walked in. Mum calls a goodbye he only half hears. 

Just as he’s closing the door steps on the stairs and his sister's voice comes through the crack. 

“Was that Louis?”

Mum hums in agreement. “You just missed him.”

“No surprise,” Lottie snorts.

Louis glances at his watch. It’s exactly on the hour, just as he plans it to be everyday. If he says something he won’t leave for another five, possibly ten full minutes. That’s ten minutes idly chatting with his sister or ten minutes he could spend on ice before the last Olympics of his career. 

One of those options is stupid. 

The door clicks shut under his hand. Shrugging both bags a little higher on his shoulders, Louis shuffles to his car without looking back. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry 

The world is chaos. A hundred voices jeer at him from beyond the mics jammed into his face like weapons pinning him against the decaled wall of sponsors. His vision swims with the flash of cameras and glaring fluorescents. There’s a ringing in his ears leftover from the noise of the crowd and his teammates yelling in victory while they crushed him with their weight. His post game shower was more of a rinse, near useless since the lingering adrenaline still has him sweating. 

“Harry! Harry! How do you feel about your goal in tonight's game?”

“I feel great!” 

The crowd laughs. Harry laughs.

The moment three inches of black rubber slid home over the red goal line, Harry had lifted his knee in a classic cha-ching celly, but his mind had already been waiting for this moment. This one, where every set of eyes is on his face, every mic picking up the sound of his breath, every bit of attention he could ever want thrust upon him. 

His teammates hate publicity, especially in the locker room which they deem strictly ‘player space.’ It’s not that Harry likes it anymore than they do, but he respects the way he owes everything to the fans. Without them, they may as well play in empty carparks to a crowd of feathered trash scavengers. 

“What’s your advice to the kids starting out?” asks a beady eyed reporter. 

Harry uses his fingers to pinch his bottom lip in thought. He has three seconds to say the exact words he needed to hear as a kid and someone is already counting. 

“Don’t stress over the gear. People are getting fussy about the brands and skates, but so long as you’ve got blades on your feet and a stick in your hand, you’re golden.” He smiles broadly as he finishes the thought, nodding in agreement with himself. 

Liam will like that he said that. His teammate is always going on about inspiring the kids, he’s even roped Harry into more than one of the fundraiser events to meet them. Harry’s not proud of how he gets a little awkward at those, still shocked to see kids wearing his name on their jerseys like he used to do with his heroes barely a handful of years ago.

“Harry! You’ve been hailed as the wonderkid on ice since the Stanley Cup game in your freshman year of the NHL. With new players such as Beiber and Timberlake coming in, are you worried for your status?”

Harry swallows again. There it is, the click of the safety on every gun pointed his way turning off, bullets now poised to lodge in his ribcage. He’s been the rookie for two seasons, too long to keep the role when there are newer, younger, _better_ players coming into the league every year. Liam tells him not to worry about it, but Harry knows his name has been mentioned when people are talking trades for the next season. He’s worried. 

He opens his mouth without words to fill it, but the three seconds are up and another voice cuts him off. 

“Harry! How did you react when chosen as a sub for the National team?”

He passed out. Not quite fully, but that’s what his sister will tell anyone who will listen. He hung up the phone blindly due to his spotty vision and had to sit down on the floor in the middle of Bed, Bath & Beyond while Gemma flipped through shower curtains. 

He licks sweat from his upper lip. His vision is similarly spotty now, but it could just be the lights. 

“Are you prepared for the Olympic games?” 

Automatically Harry winks. “I always come prepared.” 

The crowd laughs. Harry swallows so he doesn’t throw up on the manicured hand pushing another mic down his throat. 

Two minutes later Harry is the solitary straggler in the locker room. He sits on the bench hunched over his knees. The sound of his panting echoes around the cement walls, he’s still winded from the game. There are puddles from slush wiped off of blades pooling on the spongy mat floor, a few scattered towels reeking of sweat tossed around like debris, and water bottles knocked carelessly onto their sides in the nooks of gear cubbies.

For this paused moment no one is yelling his name. Crowds and teammates, coaches and the press. They’ve taken all they want from him tonight, satisfied for a small reprieve that will end with the first step he takes out of this locker room and into the hall, where he has to pull on a smile he’s perfected in the mirror for a line up of suits that will congratulate him, taking little pieces of him with every pat on the back. 

Not yet, though. Right now the only noise is a distant leaky shower head dripping onto tile.

Drip. Drip.

_Drop._

Harry shifts to rest his shoulders on the wood locker behind him and knocks his head skyward. He’ll stay here until the butterfly beating of his heart slows enough to count singular beats. When the eco-mode kicks in and half of the lights switch off, it takes the one directly above him. He’s left cast in shadow. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis

“This is the final boarding call for flight one-fifty-five B to Vancouver, Canada. Please proceed to gate four immediately.” A three note chime ends the automated message. 

Louis’ scowl deepens as he quickens his pace. Wheeled luggage bumps along behind him without a thought for caution. Finally he spots the proper hall of passenger loading bays. He’s not new to flying but the Toronto airport was designed by a blind toddler and finding this particular gate has put him well over the limited time he had during the layover from London. His eyes are swollen from lack of sleep and his traitorous body had the bloody gall to slip into a kip during the first flight. So far he’s seen nothing of the country but the inside of this airport. He’s not impressed. 

He shoves his sleek passport and the papers tucked inside towards the stewardess at the boarding tunnel. She receives them with delicate disgust, like they’re something he’s fished from the rubbish bin and not a bit of ink on paper worth a few hundred quid. Why it’s so bloody expensive to fly intercountry is beyond Louis, he could literally fly to Tokyo for less than going from one Canadian coast to the other. Surely the country wasn’t _that_ big. 

Louis gives an unimpressed look matching the one eternally embossed between the pages of his passport as the stewardess looks him over. She gives him a stamp and a smile as fake as her painted blush. 

“I’d hurry, they might have closed the doors.” 

Louis curses and snatches his papers back. He clutches the rucksack strap on his shoulder and his rolling case makes a ruckus as he sprints down the tunnel towards the plane. The uniformed man standing at the aircraft door sees him just in time to let him through like a God sent angel. Louis nods in thanks and scoots through. 

It’s not until after his first step into the recycled air of the cabin, uncomfortably sweaty more from stress than the impromptu jog, that he remembers how much he truly hates airplanes. 

Most everyone is seated now, which makes it easier for Louis to nudge his way to his middling row by the wing despite his longing glance at the packed rows closer to the nose. He’d have preferred further forward, but it’d been hell trying to book anything considering where and what he’s flying to. He collapses the handle on his roller and warily eyes the overhead baggage compartments already jammed full. 

“Oh! Here, I got it.” 

A cheery faced guy in front of him impressively shoves the bags in the compartments down until they’re squeezed near bursting, keeping one hand to hold them in place while the other reaches for Louis’ luggage and heaves it effortlessly into the place he’s created. Louis narrows his eyes, on the brink of being offended. He’s not that fucking short, okay? He could have handled it just fine, he is an Olympic athlete after all. 

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from saying so. There’s an innocent earnesty to this guy's big brown eyes that Louis can’t find the energy to snipe at, so he nods in grudging appreciation and turns to his row. 

There’s a man in his seat. Louis double checks his papers even though he doesn’t need to, he’s had these details memorised since the day he booked them. There’s a man in his seat. He’s got curls longer than half of his sisters and pouting cherry lips and legs sprawled into the aisle like he owns the place. 

“Oi,” Louis nudges a suede boot with his foot when the man takes too long to look away from his phone. “You’re in my seat.” 

“Yeah, I had window. Didn’t think you’d mind if we swapped.” The man has the audacity to smile and it’s made all the more rude by the fact that his face is actually quite pleasant. But Louis’ not the one in the wrong here and he won't be swayed by some batted eyelashes. 

“Of course I mind. I specifically booked the aisle because I prefer sitting there.”

A stewardess taps Louis on the shoulder, this one a bit more homely and not sporting talons on the ends of her fingers. This would normally work in her favour with Louis if he weren’t currently a sour apple version of himself. 

“Sir, our pre-flight can’t begin until all passengers are seated.” 

Louis holds up a hand. “A moment, yeah?”

When he looks back the man’s head rises like he’s been scanning Louis over. Louis has never felt frumpier than in his flight sweats and he thinks, _‘Really? You’re going to check a stranger out while we’re in the middle of an argument?’_

When the man’s eyes finish their journey to meet Louis’ he shrugs. “You can’t be more than five five.”

“One seventy four.” Louis crosses his arms. Goddamn Americans, he knows the conversion and he’ll take his two inches, thanks. “What’s this got to do with my seat?” 

Judging by the tilt of the man’s lips he’s amused at Louis' anger. What a patronising bastard, he is.

“I’m one eighty three. It’s comfier for me if I can sit angled into the aisle.” 

“Ya should have thought of it while booking. Now shove off.” 

“Sir, I must insist you take your seat.” The stewardess is back. 

Louis opens his mouth to snap, but the stern look on her face shuts him up quickly. He’s tired and grumpy and he’s smart enough to realise the sooner he sits the sooner the plane takes off, which means the sooner he can be off of it. 

Fine, whatever. Let the arse who didn’t plan ahead win. Louis climbs over his lap and slumps into the window seat with a huff. He half hopes his breakfast really does come up just so he can spew it all over the man next to him and teach him a lesson.

Louis shoves his rucksack under the seat in front of him as the stewards begin the safety talk, miming a routine Louis could repeat in his sleep. He buckles, then remembers there is a ritual to flights he actually needs to follow. It’s awkward to reach down for his bag with his seat belt tight across his lap and he grunts as he shuffles around for it. 

“I didn’t book the seats.” 

“What?” Louis’ only half listening as he digs out his earbuds and wet wipes from the black hole of his bag. 

He’s not actually upset that there's an attractive man sitting next to him, he simply thinks the man should have made better choices to get him here. Who doesn’t pre-book these days? 

“The team manager does it for us.” 

Louis freezes. 

Slowly he turns to fully take in the details of the man. His shoulders are broader now Louis’ level with him, his muscle lithe but on second glance prominent under his thin cotton shirt. Louis surreptitiously scans the passengers around them. Half the plane is burly muscle houses hunched over in seats or sprawled into the aisle like the man next to him. 

The hair really should have tipped Louis off. 

It’s a goddamn hockey team, is what it is. Between one blink and the next every ounce of attraction Louis had idly procured for this stranger dissolves. Only Louis would have the luck to land himself on a plane full of bloody ice monkeys. Curly here probably spits gatorade and unironically uses the word ‘bro.’

Louis breathes through his nose. Fine. This is fine. He’ll pop in his earbuds and ignore the rest of the world for the next six hours. Honestly, the Olympics won’t truly start until his feet touch the ground on the West Coast. This is fine. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry

How can someone so small take up so much space? It’s like the guy was born to fuss. First he wipes everything with disinfectant wipes that uneasily remind Harry of just how disgusting planes are. He’s been sitting in this seat since the other side of the border, so whatever germs he’s picked up he’s already stuck with. 

His neighbour jostles around in his bag for headphones and a phone and- and socks, because he’s wearing sandals. Or was, but now he’s kicked them off and slipped into socks and tucked his feet under himself, like now that he’s made enough fuss he plans on curling up like a cat. Absolutely ridiculous. Harry’s reluctantly endeared. 

He quells his initial reaction to say something of warning when the guy slips in his headphones and tilts his seat back. Attractive or not, Harry has to sit next to him for the next six hours and he feels like he’s already topped his quota for being intrusive, even though any considerate person would totally understand where Harry’s coming from on the seat thing. Not only is the guy several inches shorter and slimmer, he’s practically tucked himself into a ball in the window seat. There’s no way he’s missing the aisle. 

Harry let’s the stewardess inform his seatmate of the take-off rules and smiles apologetically when a snide comment gets tossed her way from the sour puss. Harry turns in his seat to see Liam two rows behind him, neck already cranked awkwardly as he dozes in a position Harry knows from experience he’ll complain about. Harry smiles fondly and settles as the wheels gain speed on the tarmac. He tries to look out but the shade is down. Who pulls the shades on takeoff? That’s like going for a piss during the climax of a film in the theatres. 

He nudges with his elbow. “Don’t you want to see?” 

“If you wanted to look you should’ve stuck with the window seat. You can’t have both.” 

Harry gets a judging look from the man… boy? No, definitely a man. His features are a conflicting mix of delicate and masculine, and when he looks away at a bump of turbulence Harry takes the time to admire him while gravity suspends itself. Below the lush eyelashes squeezed shut and sharp cheekbones gone pale are white knuckles clenching the armrest between them. He’s scared. Harry wants to say something to distract him, help ease the obvious strain flying puts on this oddly intriguing stranger, but a flash of embroidered text catches his attention first.

It's a classic bold font on the athletic zip with only half of the letters showing, but they’re enough. 

‘-kate C--b’

Skate Club. Figure Skating. 

Harry flops back into his seat with a huff. It explains everything. He’s sat next to a prissy little ice prince. Harry rolls his head away and stares morosely down the aisle, pouting. He glances balefully at the back of Mitch’s head, but his friend doesn’t turn around to notice Harry’s obvious upset. There goes any vague and hopeful plans he’d had of a future hook up once they land. Mister Royalty over here would probably write up a performance report on everything Harry could do better. Harry gets enough of those as it is from Coach. 

The flight is like any other. Long and dehydrating. If he weren’t on his way to the first and possibly last Olympics of his career, Harry would have called it boring. As it were, by the time they’re declining he’s exhausted from the constant rush of nerves zinging around his veins. Of course his seatmate keeps the window panel closed during touchdown, as he has the entire flight, and Harry would say something if it weren’t once more overtly obvious just how terrified the guy is from the white fisted grip he has on their shared arm rest. 

He’s easy to read, this petite ball of anxiety. For six hours Harry’s caught himself eyeing the way he moves, the curl of his dainty fingers in oversized sleeves, the frequent wrinkle of his nose when he’s annoyed by tangled headphones or the world in general, the repeated nervous tuck of his hair where it swirls around his ear. Small things to notice about a stranger, things Harry wouldn’t notice if he weren’t stuck next to him for so long. But he is. So between glancing back at Liam who’s, yep, still sleeping, and Mitch who’s bug-eyed focused on whatever documentary is playing on his six inch screen, Harry begins to recognize the patterns.

The way this stranger chews his lip every time he shuffles, tucking and untucking his legs beneath him. The way he always fiddles with his hair when he glances around the plane, like he’s nervous about catching eyes, yet the one time Harry isn’t fast enough to look away the narrowed glare he receives is anything but timid. Another contradiction added to the enigma Harry will never solve, because the moment the plane comes to a stop the guy is crawling over him to escape. 

Harry shakes his head as the guy rips a bag out of the overhead storage and whirls out of the plane before anyone else has even unclicked their seatbelts. Cute, sexy, and one hundred percent unfuckable with such an attitude problem.

Sex isn’t something Harry is adamant about having while on his Olympic journey, but with the way the team has hyped it over the training sessions leading up to the event Harry can’t say he’s not a bit eager to give it a go on this side of the northern border. 

As the wise Jeff puts it: “Everyone’s young, fit, and healthy as they come. Put us all together and it’s like spring break spent flying on the glorious natural endorphin high of competition. You just wait, come Christmas there’ll be more than one Olympic baby popping out, I guarantee it.” 

This would be the goalie’s third Olympics, second starting in net. He’s told nothing but stories of his past Olympic glory days for weeks to a not-totally-uninterested team. For the majority of them this will be their first and last Olympic experience, so they’re all looking forward to having some fun while on the largest sports stage in the world. For Harry, there’s something else taking top priority in his mind.

A hand comes down on his shoulder while he’s standing in the aisle and waiting to unboard. Harry turns around and his lips twitch at the sight of Liam’s face gone red from giggling. 

“What’s into you?” 

“The guy next to me is hilarious, H. You gotta meet him. Hey Niall,” Liam turns to the scruffy blond behind him. “This is Harry.” 

“Nice to meet ya, lad.” Niall reaches around Liam to shake Harry’s hand, an Irish accent nearly as thick as whatever the hell accent Harry’s own seatmate had had before he disappeared. 

They jostle along through the stream of unloading passengers together, Niall repeating a few vulgar jokes he’s told Liam over the flight that leave the two American’s near tears with appalled laughter. Harry learns Niall’s also a skater. 

“Ice dance, bit different from figure skatin’ but I won’t get inta it with you bruisers.” He winks good naturedly. 

They chuckle along, but Harry’s mouth twists down as he catches sight of a familiar flick of hair by the baggage claim. His seatmate’s face is pinched in annoyance, arms crossed and foot tapping like the perfect picture of a priss. 

“Shawny boy!” 

Niall’s booming calls Harry’s attention. He turns to see Niall wrapped in an equally rosy cheeked kid Harry grudgingly realises is taller than him.

“Lads, this is Shawn. Didn’t even see ya on the flight there.” 

The two start chatting excitedly, both bright eyed and consciously bringing Harry and Liam into the conversation when opportunities arise. Harry can’t help but keep glancing over his shoulder. Clearly not all skaters are stuck up princes, just the one. 

Harry perks up as the conveyor belt jerks into motion. Bags start tumbling down the chute. 

“Christ, you’d think we had every ice competitor on our flight,” Niall groans.

“Our whole team was with us.” Liam shrugs in agreement. 

“Good thing we didn’t pull a five forty-eight, I saw Louis too. None of Simon’s crew, though,” Shawn pipes in. 

“Bastard,” Niall mutters. 

Harry doesn't say anything or ask about whatever bad blood has a cheerful guy like Niall grinding his jaw. He’s too busy staring wide-eyed at the ever growing mass of skate bags going round and round. They don’t stop coming. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis

Checking his skates into cargo baggage was like handing his soul to overworked airport staff to toss around carelessly and hope it’d miraculously appear in his hands unharmed upon landing. Whomever thought a skater would attempt slaughter with their blades could never understand how covering your skates so carelessly in blood would be akin to setting a house you built with your own hands aflame. 

Louis would never be okay with the separation, and he vocally ranted this opinion on several occasions to his mother the first time he’d competed internationally and had to check his skates. Seeing a thousand identical black skate bags pour from the relentless mouth of the baggage claim belt makes him endlessly thankful for her. He would send her a text of thanks if he didn’t know all he’d receive was an ‘I told you so.’ 

When she first came home with a baby blue skate bag, twelve year old Louis nearly cried. Male figure skaters were teased for being feminine enough, he didn’t understand why she hadn’t bought the black bag like all the other boys had until the first day he’d used it and realised he never had to dig through a pile of identical bags again. Faded and scuffed baby blue canvas rolls down the cargo belt to land on top of the pile of endless black. Louis picks it up as soon as it’s within reach and tears off the tag, shaking his head at the hockey goons and skaters still rummaging. 

A stone has been rolling around the hollow pit of his stomach since he caught sight of familiar faces and he’s glad to turn away from them. The flight has made him too unsteady to handle confronting anyone from the old crowd. Among them is his seatmate, just as tall as he’d claimed to be and still relentlessly attractive. 

Louis ignores the twinge of regret for not even getting a name. There are more important and appealing things to be doing tonight than hooking up with an idiot jock. Things like the vanilla bath salts he packed specifically to use after the flight. 

He sets them on the edge of the glistening pearlescent tub while unpacking in his accommodations, a tempting treat for later. Neat bundles of near identical training gear gets sorted into the drawers and closet of the single room booked for his extended stay. Even his toiletries he props in a neat row by the sink. Changed into fresh trackies, he sets off to locate the training ground. He isn’t going to let the flight waste an entire day. 

The information packet he’d received as a participant in the games boasted on the commons, a shared building with things like a gym, office space, and general lounging area for athletes to take advantage of while ignoring the crippling anxiety of competing. 

The commons building is in the main village, conveniently across the quaint cobblestone road from Louis’ accommodations. Despite the shortness of the journey, slushy snow and early evening winds make him long for the anorak hung uselessly in his closet. His shoulders are tight and hunched when he storms into the warm building bubbling with the excited chatter of athletes. Louis doesn’t pause to appreciate any of it, the dominating stone fireplace calling for him to warm up or the buttery soft looking furniture to curl and nap in, instead he marches past with determined steps.

Carpeted steps and warm earth tones accompany him in the stairwell, but it abruptly cuts off the moment he opens the doors to the training area on the second floor. Something settles. His shoulders finally loosen as harsh sterile light glares off of pristine white walls. The overwhelming scent of new rubber matts and sweat is the comfort he’s been longing for since boarding the plane. 

The space is sporadically filled with skaters training off-ice. A severe looking couple practice lifts, but the girl stays on the blond man’s shoulders instead of above his head, so they must be ice dance instead of pairs. Louis’ never understood ice dancers. Where was the fun in skating in circles if you never had the challenge of rotational jumps? Bit mind numbing if you ask him. Although the hardened focus on their faces instills a slip of relief that he won't be competing against them and their murderous glares. Perhaps he was wrong about skaters never killing with their blades. 

He strides slowly to an area removed from the twirling and stretching of others, scanning thrice over the occupants and careful to keep his eyes quick so no one else matches his gaze, just to make sure there are no surprises. No jet black locks and honey tanned skin. Satisfied, Louis turns his back to the rest of the room and pops in the ear buds he’s been fiddling with in his pocket the entire way here. 

He’s seen the headlines, can’t escape them. He knows what the skaters peering at him from the corner of their eyes are thinking: Bloody hell, there he is. The guy who fucked up the Gold so badly he was knocked clean from the podium. Comeback kid, some of the kinder articles said. But it’s not a comeback if he doesn’t step up, so Louis keeps his head down and gets to work. 

Sweat rolls down his face and Louis rubs his nose just in time to stop it from dropping into the water fountain he’s hunched over. His freshly filled bottle sits beside him as he chugs straight from the source. Straightening, he runs the back of his forearm over the mess of fringe plastered to his forehead and grimaces, once again chastising himself for forgetting a headband when he stalked over here. He’d been too stubborn to retrieve it once the hair started to bother him five minutes into his warmup and had spent the last few hours resenting every second his hair annoyingly clung to his sweaty skin. 

Louis steps out of the way for the blond behind him, not going far because he’s still out of breath from practicing off-ice axels on the spongy mats. 

“Gonna slip away without a bye, then?” 

Louis drops the shirt from where he was drying his face at the familiar brogue. It’s the dancer he first saw, but he’s smiling ruefully now and it completely alters his face into something familiar, bar the hair. Louis fiddles with the hem of his shirt and swallows with a sheepish flush of guilt for not recognising him sooner. 

“You done your hair, couldn’t look too close without blinding meself.” 

Niall scrunches the fluff of blond on his head, a stark difference to the brunette Louis was familiar with when they were novices on the EU circuit. They’d never been overly close, what with Niall living in a different country and their schedules too busy to hold any form of sustainable communication, but during the downtime of past competitions they’ve had a laugh creating a fair bit of youthful mischief. 

“I hate it meself, did it mostly to piss her off and haven’t been arsed to grow it out yet.” 

Louis looks where Niall’s jerked his head towards his partner focused on a cool down routine, only distantly familiar. Hannah, Heather, something of the sort. She’s been Niall’s pair since they were kids and, last Louis knew, she was Niall’s soulmate. So a very adamant and teary eyed sixteen year old Niall had professed during a memorable Junior Worlds win. Louis tilts his head in confusion and opens his mouth, but Niall shakes his head and pats him on the shoulder before he can ask. 

“Ya missed a fair bit, lad.” 

Louis shrugs with crossed arms, well aware he’s being defensive. Niall chuckles and dips down to chug his own litre of water. 

Louis hovers and shuffles his weight from foot to foot. He’d come here thinking he could stand on his own, refusing his mother’s polite offer to accompany him even though he’d desperately wanted her, or any of the family really, to be with him on the most important day of his life. But he knew she was already overstressed with the younger kids and finding the time off in addition to a sitter for such a long period would have been an ordeal and a half, if not impossible.

His coach was the only person he’d brought, though Simon was here on necessity and not desire, which Louis was sure they were both well aware of by this point. The familiarity of Niall is something Louis hadn't known he’d crave until presented, and now that he’s found it he feels like a toddler clinging to a comfort object. 

Niall resurfaces with a gasp of air and a smack of his lips. He ducks down to run water over his head and shakes it out as he stands. He’s scrunching a hand through it and has one eye closed to avoid the dripping water when he faces Louis. 

“You in the Ice House with us?” Niall asks. 

“Yeah, think they’ve got all of us in there. I’m on the third floor.” 

“We’re on fourth, don’t mind if I run down sometime to escape the ice queen. What’s got you here so early? Thought men’s was two weeks out?” 

Louis hums, not overly eager to get into his weak points, but then Niall’s here too and dance competes after the men’s skate, so Louis' not the only one early to show. He impulsively decides on the truth, perhaps a tad desperate to confide in someone.

“Need to settle and get over the jet lag. Soak in the environment so it doesn’t throw me off.” 

“Sounds pretty smart." Niall frowns in thought, both of them not acknowledging why Louis might be thrown off by the Olympic environment. Niall shrugs out of it. “Hey, you got plans now? Wanna see if the pints here taste like maple?” He tilts Louis a smile. 

Louis hesitates, wanting to keep the comfort of Niall’s presence but well aware ‘a pint’ with an Irishman is never a single drink. Simon had warned him about this exact moment, drilled it into Louis that he didn’t need the press, the hangover, or the distraction of a night out. 

“C’mon mate, if we’re being honest I think ya need it to help ease that stick outta yer arse.” Niall nudges him in the arm with a wink. 

“Shove off, Horan.” Louis pushes Niall’s shoulders as a pool of warmth blooms in his belly from the easy way the words come to his mouth, words he’s said many times before with a fondness just like this. “You’re buyin’ first round in case it’s shite.” 

Niall’s face warms genuinely then, his cheeks rounding further with a spark in his eyes. The instant relaxation of his stance makes it obvious he hadn’t been sure about Louis. The realisation makes that little flip of guilt flare back up. Four years ago Louis shut out every bit of the world around him, keeping his head down to drown out the sound of every sticky fingered leech calling his name during ISU competitions. It had been easier to believe they were all out to get him than sort through to find the genuine ones.

Now he’s struck silent by his overwhelming gratitude for how Niall still slings an arm around his shoulder after four years of Louis ignoring his attempts to reach out. He wraps his arm around Niall’s waist, both of them damp with sweat and a sore sight from several hours of training, beaming ear to ear. Louis vows to make it up to his friend. This time he’s not going to let go. 

Tonight doesn’t have to mess with anything. He’ll stay mostly sober, catch up with his mate, and be up to train in the morning. Simon’s not even in the country yet, and even if he were, he would never understand. Few could ever know how long Louis’ been really fucking lonely. The bath salts can wait. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry 

“Dude, did you see?” Liam’s excited voice carries from across the hall, through the two open doors of their dorm-like rooms.

Harry sets his bags down on the bed with a groan of relief. He flops down next to them in a similar fashion. Everything between baggage claim and now is a blur of navigating their way out of the airport, bussing a couple hours on a road so windy half the team got motion sick, and hauling his gear into House America. It’s only mid-afternoon, but it feels like an eon has passed since he left his house pre-dawn that morning. The team has been split between excited and exhausted, as clearly exhibited by the noise level of the former and grumpy rebuttals of the latter throughout the halls. 

“What’sat Payno?” He mumbles into the blissfully soft duvet, knowing Liam has no chance of hearing him. 

Footsteps near before something small hits him in the head. Harry pushes himself up immediately, heart spiking after years of team hazing. It’s just Liam though, excited puppy smile and all and that’s when Harry notices the neon pink square in the sheets he’s been pelted with. A condom. Liam has a handful of the bright little packages. 

“Why?” Harry barely manages to ask before Jeff runs by the open door. Another condom smacks Harry in the chest with enough force to sting. 

Harry rubs at the spot and the sound in the hall grows louder, doors slamming and men shouting and laughing amidst thundering feet. He and Liam peer out to see the carpeted floor littered in a rainbow of condoms. 

“They’ve put a bowl of them in everyone's rooms,” Liam explains with a broad grin. 

A smile twitches on Harry’s lips, a thrum of energy awakening in him at the happy chaos ensuing. The team continues to run amok and pelt each other with ammo from their separate rooms, dashing down the hall mission impossible style in search of their next target. 

“And they thought we were mature enough to handle that?” 

“You’d think they’d know hockey players, what with being the founding country and all.” Liam shrugs and picks up the condom from the mess of Harry’s bed. 

Liam laughs out loud when he watches Harry turn to locate his own pile of condoms in a bowl by the bedside and stuff them in his pockets. Together he and Liam move into the doorway, leaning cautiously into the hallway with hands and pockets fully stocked. 

“What room is Mitch in?” Harry asks, his focus going sharp in a similar way it does during a game. 

Liam leans next to him and points. “Two down, one across. On three?” 

Harry grins. 

“One… Two…” 

Harry never had the frat house experience. Drafted at eighteen, he barely had time to don a cap and gown before development camp. There are certain similarities between the team and a fraternity, and the line between them has never been so blurred as it is now. The designated rooming situation is the first thing to be thrown out the window. The team has been double bunked and the guy meant to room with Harry is seen down the hall with Kessler, so Liam wanders in with his bags and claims the free bed. 

After the excitement of the arrival wears off Harry negotiates with Liam, promising to go out later that night if he lets Harry take a nap first. Liam calls him an old man before heading out to mingle in the commons with the other nations. Tomorrow is their last free day before digging into drills to prep for the Round Robin games that will designate their standing, which means tonight is their only chance to let loose before their Olympic games begin. If Harry wasn’t so worn out from travelling the thought alone would have kept him twtisting in the sheets with anxiety, but luckily he’s out cold the second his head hits the pillow. His unpacked bags are kicked to the bottom of the bed. 

Liam wakes him. 

Harry spits out foamy toothpaste. “Did you ask Mitch if he’s coming?” 

“I’m sure he is, but not with us. Wifey of his is a few floors down.”

“Oh,” Harry sees his own frown in the mirror. “We shoulda said hi.” 

He likes Sarah. He hadn’t put it together that as part of the women's team she’d also be staying in the House America complex, and now he feels bad for napping instead of going to visit. 

“Still can, when they’re done utilising the freebies our hosts so generously supplied.” 

Harry rolls his eyes and refocuses on his reflection in the ensuite. His shirt is wrinkled from the way he tossed it into his bag and his black jeans weren’t as clean as he’d thought when packing, but they’ll do in the dark of whatever cramped club they end up in. He tosses his hair around until it looks less like a dead animal on his shoulders and the curls shake loose. A quick mouthful of mouthwash, Liam’s because Harry forgot his own, and a refresh of cologne, only one spritz because he’s learned from past mistakes, makes him good to go. 

The night starts well. Harry’s the happy sort of tipsy where it could still go either way depending on what he drinks next. Liam’s close enough to reach out and tickle Harry’s sides when he’s not looking, and they make funny faces at each other when he is. They’re acting like children in the crush of bodies and Harry fucking loves it, loves Liam, loves life. Overproduced house music mixes with their exuberant laughter as the euphoria of being young and on top of the world takes over. Two weeks from now Harry could be washed up by twenty four. He’s not thinking about that, he’s thinking about buying his bestest friend in the whole wide world another drink because he loves him so damn much. 

“Anything for you Lima, promise,” Harry yells into his friend’s ear as he plasters himself to Liam’s back and slings his arms around his shoulders. He maybe, kinda, sorta gets clingy after a few drinks. 

Liam just laughs and says the name of some drink Harry doesn’t catch through the music and crowd. He nods and smiles anyways, twirling off towards the bar. 

The sight of miniature Olympic rings glowing behind the barman reminds Harry of why he’s there, so he plays the smart move and sticks with water while waiting for Liam’s drink. He leans on his forearms, winking at the cute bartender because he feels like it and not even paying attention to whatever reaction he gets. Water straw in mouth, he lifts Liam’s drink above his head to navigate the jammed crowd of bouncing bodies to the vague direction whence he came. 

He keeps his eyes on the rim of the glass above his head in an attempt to keep it level, but it leaves him defenceless to the body thrown into his back. The glass slips out of his hands. 

“Oh shite, Lou!” A large guffaw comes from the man crushed behind him. 

His blond hair sticks out in the dim light and the rest of him is vaguely familiar. He’s patting Harry on the back in apology for running into him and looking at the person in front of them. The Ice Prince from the plane. 

“Lou?” Harry says to the pissed face resembling a drowned cat. 

“You!” The cat hisses. 

“Harry,” he corrects automatically. 

“Sorry Louis, it was my bad. Knocked straight into him.” Niall’s heavy hand pats Harry on the back again and Harry’s brow creases. 

“There’s no straight in me,” Harry insists. Then he realises what he’s said. 

Perhaps he’s had more to drink than he thought. He sips at his water, suddenly overly interested in it and adamantly not the clingy transparent fabric of Louis-from-the-plane’s shirt. 

“Is that so?” 

Harry hums around his straw without looking up. There are _tattoos._

Harry spits out his chewed straw to blurt, “Would you like my shirt?”

“What are you on about?”

“Your shirt, it’s all wet and… “ Harry motions at the general indecency happening in front of him with a pained sound. 

Without his water to focus on, Harry tries to keep steady eye contact but struggles not to devour each curve of the slim chest on display under wet fabric. A pleased smirk informs Harry he’s definitely as unsubtle as he feels and fuck. This boy's smile. It pushes up his cheeks and crinkles eyes and it’s worth dying for, Harry is one hundred percent sure after three seconds in its presence. 

“Right, ‘cause your shirt’s covering much more? Think I can see a third nipple there.” 

“Four,” Harry corrects and peels his half-buttoned shirt open a little wider to point to the extra pair with an unbothered grin, “I’ve got four, actually.” 

“Wild.” Niall laughs. 

Right, Niall. Liam’s ‘guy from the plane.’ He’s standing by Louis now, both leaning into each other a little and Harry doesn’t know how to read it. Familiar with each other, but _how_ familiar? 

“Don’t want your shirt. There’s another way you can make it up for me, mate,” Louis says with a mischievous glint in his eye under multi-coloured lights. 

“Yeah?”

Heat stirs in Harry’s lower belly at the wicked smile and he tilts a little closer at the flirty tone. 

“You have to do a blowjob.” 

Harry blinks, mind stalling. “What?” 

Louis laughs, his eyes and Harry’s heart crinkling with it’s ardor. 

“A blow job shot, you twat. C’mon, Niall’s paying cause it’s his fault as always.” 

Which is how Liam finds Harry standing at the bar giggling with two men, whom he can barely understand given how the night has slurred their accents, and whipped cream everywhere. Seriously, it’s in his hair and eyelashes and everything. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis 

Harry Styles. That’s the name of the hockey player who poured an entire glass of alcohol over his head, so Louis finds out somewhere between watching the man suffocate himself on whipped cream and dancing. The two pairs stick together as a group for the rest of the night on the dance floor. Niall hits it off with the other lad, Liam, and Louis might even see tears of relief in his friend’s eye as they exchange numbers, apparently having missed the chance to do so on the plane. Niall’s always really liked making friends, Louis supposes. 

Louis also wants to cry, but for a very different reason. Harry had been attractive on the plane. Now he’s sex on Chelsea boot heels, his unbuttoned shirt revealing a stunning sculpted chest full of ink. The only thing to make the matter less mortifying is the obvious way Harry keeps looking him over. 

After a fresh round of drinks they’re dancing. Well, somewhere over his shoulder Niall is drunkenly sucking face with a girl definitely not his skating partner, so that confirms Louis’ suspicion that soulmates aren’t forever. Harry’s friend is a few bodies away with another group of loud Americans doing a dance everyone seems to know. For his part, Louis was a good boy and stuck to water after the first promised pint, but if he plays into acting a little tipsy and doesn’t stop wandering hands on the dance floor, well. No one calls him out on it. 

louis'

Like opposite magnets, he and Harry orbit around each other on the floor, dancing within arms reach but not properly together. Anticipation grows steadily in Louis’ belly as he meets Harry’s eyes in the flash of the club lights, light heartedly giggling at Harry’s abysmal attempts to control his limbs with any sort of rhythm. Then there's a telling brush of fingers along the side of his arm. 

With a thrill, Louis allows it. From one beat to the next he moves into the curve of Harry’s body. Louis hasn’t physically been this close with anyone in years and when Harry’s sure hands curl around his hips, stars burst under Louis' skin like a virgin being touched for the first time. He sinks backwards into Harry’s sturdy chest and soaks in the heat of every place their bodies touch with a conflicting mix of ease and excitement.

Harry’s eyes light up in wonder when Louis glances over his shoulder to smile at him. He leans in close enough for his curls to brush Louis’ ear. 

“This is okay?” He asks in a deep timbre Louis feels more than hears. 

Harry's had a few to drink, Louis can tell by the haze in his eyes if nothing else, but he holds steady with a serious look while waiting for an answer. Like without hesitation he’d pull away the second Louis told him to. 

“Yeah,” Louis breathes, gone dizzy with a head rush as he covers Harry’s hands with his own and pushes into the broad body behind him. 

With the addition of a partner Harry’s dancing hasn’t improved, limbs loose yet off beat and a little wild. Louis uses his own body to lead Harry into the beat, guiding and rocking against him until they’re pulsing as one. He knocks his head back and closes his eyes to just feel. 

If he doesn’t pull away at the wet heat of Harry’s breath trailing closer and closer to the sensitive skin of his neck, well. No one calls him out on that, either.

Louis wakes alone in his silent room with senses intact. No mystery body beside him, no regrets to mar the happy memories of the night before, and no hangover to blame for what he’s seeing. 

Holy shite. Holy fucking shite. He’s opened his skate bag in search of a headband so he wouldn’t repeat yesterday's misery. That’s completely forgotten now, because sitting in the baby blue skate bag are a pair of big, black, bulky hockey skates. 

HOCKEY. SKATES.

The sight of them turns his respiratory system to concrete and he stumbles backwards with the collosal weight of it until he hits the bed. He sits with a thud. The bag is still in his hands, the contents refusing to morph into his beloved skates. They stay high cut, wax laced, unpicked hockey skates. 

Louis’ mind frantically retraces its steps. He hadn’t even looked at the tag when he’d picked up this bag at the baggage claim, so confident he’d be the only one with this colour. Evidently not, because with it in hand he can clearly see the scuff marks that he’s never made and when he fumbles into them the pockets are filled with foreign change and sport socks instead of headbands and nylons. Stupid. He’s been so bloody stupid it makes bile pool in his throat with the threat of being sick.

Yesterday Louis caught side snips of conversation around him while he ate dinner. People buzzing with concern over these Olympics being cursed, what with record warm temperatures on the mountain, the torch failing to light, and one of the athletes dying. Now Louis’ skates are gone. All were of equal catastrophe as far as he was concerned. 

The coins he picks out of the pockets grind together when his fist curls in a relentless cocktail of emotion. He forces his palm to flatten out and reveal no crown in sight. American. 

Louis spent several hours rubbing himself all over an American hockey player last night and didn’t even think to get his number. Last night had been a dip into indulgence, something he rarely did but had hoped would be a one and done moment of stress relief. He’d thought he was doing the right thing, the smart thing, by avoiding further distraction.

Luckily he knows someone who did get a hockey player’s number last night. 

“Niall.” Louis jumps the man the moment his blond head pops around the door of his room with bleary eyes. 

“Christ, mate,” Niall mutters and knocks his forehead to the doorway. 

“That hockey player from last night, I need his number.” 

Niall’s grimace turns into a knowing grin. 

“Don’t got it. He was glued on you, shouldn’t you already have it?” 

Louis grits his teeth and ignores Niall’s pointed glance at the unfortunate mark on his neck.

“What about the other one?” 

Niall’s face quirks with deeper confusion. “Liam? Pretty sure he’s straight as an arrow, lad.” 

“Not the point.” 

“Alright, alright.” Niall sighs and turns back into his room. 

The sound of Niall exchanging hushed words with a sleepy female makes Louis wince with a bit of guilt, but not enough to regret waking them. This is an emergency like never before, and the sooner it can be solved the better for everyone. The better for Louis.

Niall returns with his phone and they stand toe to toe until Louis’ screen lights up with his text. 

“Lifesaver, Niall.” Louis thanks and immediately starts typing a new text to the number Niall sent him. 

“Yeah, s’me. Not even gonna ask, just sod off ya?” 

“No early morning training?” Louis teases, suspended from his crisis for the moment by Niall’s rumpled appearance and definitive lack of clothing.

“Cardio, private session. You’re not invited,” Niall winks as he shuts the door. 

The vibration of an incoming text from Liam makes Louis pause mid step in the hall. It’s another string of numbers followed by ‘have fuuuunn ;)’ 

Louis’ gut twists with a pang of longing. Some days he wishes he was that person. He wishes he was simply a young twenty four year-old tracking down the number of the hot stranger from the night before. Not the hot mess of an athlete trying to locate the most vital items of his life. Scowling away the stupid wave of feelings brought on by a wink emoji, of all things, he closes his first draft and opens another new conversation. 

His thumbs hesitate over the screen. Harry didn’t give the impression of being the brightest bulb, which possibly had more to do with the grudge Louis still held over him for the seat thing, but he did seem like an okay guy all said and done. He’d checked in with Louis last night, even kept things strictly above the waist despite the obvious way they’d been eyeing each other. 

Human decency was one thing. What Louis was about to trust him with was something the press would have a heyday with. Louis needs to figure out whose possession his skates are in with the fewest people knowing he’s already fucked up his last chance of redemption, which means creating the least amount of electronic traces.

So he ignores every millennial instinct in him to text and presses dial. It takes so long to connect Louis paces and winds up nearly unbalanced at the voice that comes through. 

“‘Lo?” 

“This is Louis Tomlinson.” The words fall out of his mouth in a jumble, tongue growing thick as he realises he’s woken Harry up. 

“Louis,” Harry greats with muddled warmth and Louis’ mind flickers for a brief second, wavering. 

He wants to ask Harry out for coffee and confirm that yes, he is asking ‘like a date’. But that’s not really an option, because that’s not Louis’ life, and he’s not stupid. 

“Can we meet? Strictly business, there’s something we need to talk about.” He keeps his tone flat, his words curt.

“Okay?” 

“Now. As soon as possible, but preferably now.” 

“Yeah,” Harry remains uncertain as the sound of him moving about comes through, most likely sheets in his bed because it’s still early and they were out late last night. Louis blinks away the thought of what Harry might sleep in. “Just lemme put some clothes on. The uh- the Starbucks okay?” 

Louis’ eyes squeeze together in effort to fight off visions of naked Harry combined with his sleep thick voice. 

“Great. Bye.” 

He needs to inform Simon he’ll be moving his morning training to the afternoon, or God forbid the evening if it truly takes that long to track down his skates. There won't be a lot his coach can do since he’s not scheduled to be joining Louis until the first on-ice practice, but once they do reunite Louis knows what to expect. 

Stupid. Hardly perfect. Barely good. Moments like these are why Louis lost before, and they’ll be why he loses again. 

Louis won’t survive another loss. 

He braces his shoulders on the wall and deflates, slowly sliding down to knock his phone against his forehead. Bloody hell. Harry’s hands on his waist had felt so good. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry

Spending the last free day of his first Olympics with Louis Tomlinson had not been the plan. Harry’s not upset about the company, but the circumstances could be better. They could be naked, for starters. Instead Louis’ got him tracking down every hockey player who was on their flight to ask about the colour of their skate bag, of all things. 

“I’m doing a survey,” Louis quipped tight-lipped when Harry had paused mid first-sip with a raised latte and eyebrow.

“So ask them yourself?” 

“They’re more likely to speak to one of their kind.” Louis had responded with no lack of attitude. 

Clearly Louis doesn’t want to trust him, but if what Harry suspects is going on is really going on, then he doesn’t blame him. Harry’s woken sweaty and shaking after a few of his own lost skate nightmares, yet he can’t imagine what it would be like to have it happen in real life. At the Olympics, no less.

The weight of Louis being in such a situation makes an inkling of guilt bleed its way through Harry when he can’t help finding his nervous habits absurdly adorable. He keeps getting distracted by delicate hands picking at knit sweater cuffs the colour of vanilla cream. 

“The fuck you wanna know for?” 

Harry’s attention returns to the man standing in front of him, one of the Johnson’s. It’s a response he’s becoming overly familiar with. 

Harry shrugs indifferently like he’s just as frustratedly and slips into the language he only ever uses around other hockey players. ”I dunno man, Coach is asking. You gonna tell me or what?” 

“Black.” Harry huffs at the answer and the guy gives him a bristled glare. “What were you expecting? Hot pink to match your panties?” 

Harry nods along like _yeah, yeah, whatever_ and turns away. Fucking hockey players. It’s near noon and Harry is growing tired of facing off with defensive creatures like them, his own status as a player not withstanding. 

Around the pillar of a stone building he finds Louis right where he left him. With crossed arms and a lip chewed raw, he’s a coiled spring of anxiety. Like the last time Harry almost opened his mouth to bail, he wipes the thought from his mind with the visual reminder of just how shitty Louis must be feeling. 

“How many more?” 

Harry hunches his shoulders. “After those four? Sixteen, and I don’t really know all of them.” 

“Oh Christ.” Louis pales. “How do you not recognize them all? Surely you spend enough time puffing out your chests and staring each other down.” 

Harry would reply with something rather curt if this was any other time, but he spots the tremor in Louis’ hand as he raises it to his forehead. There’s a lot on the line for Louis. If entering the professional world of athleticism had taught Harry anything, it’s how sports truly are a mental game. The world became a circle of vultures wanting a spectacle, as enthusiastic about tearing you down as they are when cheering you on. 

Freaking out about it or sniping at each other right now isn’t going to help anything, so Harry keeps his mouth shut. A quick glance reveals not as many options as he’d like in the way of distractions. 

“C’mon.” he tugs at the soft knit sleeve poking out of Louis’ jacket and starts towards a brightly coloured sign. 

“Do you see someone else?” Louis perks up hopefully. 

Harry tilts his head with a smile full of bravado he doesn’t feel. “Better.”

The store is filled with tacky cartoon cows on everything. They have t-shirts with cow puns based on every major blockbuster film and designer label. 

Louis’ nose wrinkles with distaste. “What are we doing here?” 

“Would you still be seen with me in public if I wore that [shirt?](https://shop.cows.ca/shop/moocci-adult-t/)” Harry points at the knockoff Gucci design replaced with the text ‘Moocci’, a cartoon cow replacing the designer brands golden initials. 

Louis’ face scrunches further, and when he looks at Harry’s wide grin it morphs into disbelief. 

“You’re not even joking, are you?” 

“Nope.” Harry pops the p. 

Harry buys the shirt. He also buys a double scoop of ice cream in a waffle cone to reward himself for being a good person and nearly kicks himself when the skater says he’s off dairy. Luckily there’s sorbet, and Harry almost pumps his fist in celebration when he catches the twitch of a smile Louis tries to hide behind his first little spoonful. 

Harry’s mouth goes dry when Louis’ tongue continues to poke out and taste the fruity ice. By the time they’re tossing spoons his lips are stained berry bright. Harry can’t stop staring at them instead of Louis’ eyes when they talk shortly about directions, so Harry tries not to look at him at all. He wants to dip down and see if Louis’ tongue still tastes like fruit. 

With embarrassing effort Harry manages to peer through the copious amounts of knit hats, parkas, and scarves milling around the cobblestone streets of Whistler Village and correctly recognize three more players on his team. All three have decent enough attitudes, which makes up for the disappointment of their black skate bags. Louis won’t even tell him what colour they _are_ looking for, just that it’s not black. 

After a full morning of being outside another bright spot is convincing Louis to duck into the hat shop. An eclectic collection of felt, wool, and cotton packs the tiny closet of a store to the brim. For the most part Louis stays uninterested while stretching out his fingers, most likely just as numb as Harry’s. The feathers and ribbons are a bit much, but matte wool holds something intriguing to Harry. He can’t resist placing a few on top of the mess the wind has made of his curls. 

In the corner of the mirror is Louis rubbing idly at his rosy nose. Harry grabs the silliest hat he can find and shoves it onto his head. 

“Hey Louis.” He crosses his eyes the moment Louis turn towards him in the mirror. 

Minutes and several silly hats later Louis is folded in half with laughter while Harry grins smugly with a banana beret on his head, feeling on top of the world. Maybe it’s not how he’d first imagined bending Louis over at first sight, but this feels like a win. 

As the sky starts to darken enough for coloured strings of lights to glow in winter's early twilight, Harry walks away from another confused teammate with a grim shake of his head. Louis curses, breath fogging the air as he eyes the time on his phone. 

“Starbucks at six.” 

Harry pinches his lip between his forefinger and thumb. 

“Little late for another coffee,” he admits. 

“Not tonight, I have several hours of practice to go make up for. Tomorrow morning I’ll meet you at the Starbucks at six," Louis says tersely as he taps away, eyes still on his phone. 

“I can’t-”

“You have to.” Louis cuts in with a harsh glare. 

Harry’s fists ball in his pockets. 

“Ballet on ice isn’t the only sport going on here, in case that slipped your mind.” 

They share a tense look where neither of them back down, but behind the wall of determination in Louis’ eyes Harry remembers the unguarded moments he’s caught them full of uncertainty. 

Harry uncurls his hands and relaxes his posture, leaning closer so he can speak softly. “When do you need them by?”

“What?” Louis eyes him warily, still trying to evade the truth. 

Harry shakes his head once, telling Louis not to try. He knows. “Your skates, Louis. When do you go on ice?” 

Louis’ voice is small and his eyes are glued to the ground as he answers. “My session is on the twenty first.” 

Relief. Harry rests his hands on Louis’ shoulders so they’re directly face to face. 

“Look, this is shitty and I can’t imagine what it feels like. But we’ve got seven days to find them, whatever it takes. I’ll text you after practice tomorrow, okay?” 

Louis sniffles with wide shiny eyes. He looks caught off guard and Harry’s chest squeezes with anticipation as Louis opens his mouth. 

But then Louis hesitates, pouts, and mutters a quick little, “Fine.” 

Harry rolls his eyes and drops his arms. 

By the time he’s trudged through the overcrowded streets to House America, Harry’s feet are ice blocks. He kicks off the snow collected on his boots and starts unwinding the several layers of insulation he’d piled on throughout the day. Halfway through unravelling the scarf tangled with his hair he walks into something. Or someone, considering furniture usually doesn’t make noise. Even through layers of jackets the arm over his shoulder is familiar and Harry knows who it is before he has the scarf cleared from his face to see his best friend. 

“Hey H,” Liam smiles. 

Harry returns the smile, noting Liam’s flush from the cold and his similar pile of layers. He was probably out with Mitch, and a hint of longing works its way through Harry. The three of them have been talking about this trip since the team roster became official. They have so many things they said they were going to do together, and Harry reminds himself not to let the days slip away without doing at least half of them. 

“Hey, you just get in too?” 

“Yeah, spent the day just checking things out. Where’d you run off? Thought you’d a’ given me a ring.” 

Harry’s foot catches on the carpet as he misses a step and Liam’s arm continues to take him forward. He steadies himself with an arm around Liam’s down padded waist and tries to save face. 

“Uh yeah, same. Just wandered, saw the sights.” 

They stomp their way through the place, people around them having to part to make way for their double wide shoulders. It’s a bit obnoxious, but Harry enjoys being in the familiar presence of his best friend after dealing with the tense friction of Louis’ frayed nerves all day. 

“You with Mitch?” Liam asks as they split to fit in the stairs. 

“No, uhm. By myself, actually.” Liam gives him a questioning look, so Harry shrugs it off and tries to shift the conversation. “You excited for practice tomorrow?” 

“Sure.” 

Liam rubs the back of his head and looks around like he’s trying to spot someone. Maybe he’s nervous about the games, and it’s startling to realise Harry has barely even worried about them. He’s been too distracted with Louis. 

“You wanna grab a bite? Maybe ask the lovebirds if they're gonna join?” Liam asks as they crash into their shared room.

Everything is just the way they left it. Harry tosses his armful of shedded layers onto the luggage now slumped on the floor by the foot of his bed, half its contents spilling out from when he’d dug around in it to dress this morning. 

“Sure thing. I’ll meet you downstairs in a sec.” 

Harry flashes Liam a smile before tripping into the ensuite. He puffs his cheeks and breathes out long and steady until he’s completely deflated against the back of the closed door. He hadn’t thought about it until Liam had asked who he’d spent the day with. If he said Louis Tominson then Liam would ask why, and it’s pretty clear Louis wants the least amount of people to know what’s happening is, in fact, happening. Although Liam would probably have his own impression of why Harry was hanging around the skater considering the multiple thumbs up and winks he’d given at the club. 

He sheds the rest of his clothes and stands under the steaming spray to work warmth into the bits of his body he hasn’t felt for hours. When he steps out of the bathroom in boxers he finds the suite empty. Liam’s things are tossed around in a similar manner as his so he’s probably downstairs mingling while he waits for Harry. 

Harry crouches in front of his bag of jumbled belongings to sort out a new outfit. A patch of green pokes out from under a ball of shirts. Steam is rising from his skin with the heat of the shower he’s stepped out of, yet ice prickles along his spine at the sight of green canvas. 

He’s being paranoid. Must be. But there’s something… not right about his skate bag. He’s damn well familiar with the exact creases and small tears, like the one on the nose end from getting caught in a doorway. The one that’s not there. 

Stomach flip flopping, Harry chucks every item clear of the zipper so he can rip it open. 

Black velvet. That is most definitely fucking black velvet. He sits his ass down right on the floor with his hands full of black velvet, thin laced, toe picked figure skates. 

His phone is on the bathroom counter. If Harry leans back he can see it through the open door from his place on the floor. He looks between it and the skates in his hands. 

The right thing to do is call Louis immediately. Tell him about the mix-up and wish him well on his way to competition. This is what Harry should do. But a sour coil of suggestion eases its way into his mind. Despite the anxiety and stilted conversation with his teammates, today had been nice. More than nice. Several times Harry had been caught off guard by Louis’ harsh sense of humour and, in the short lived moments when he forgot to be stressed, their easy conversation. 

If he tells Louis, Harry won't have a reason to spend another day with the cute boy who took his mind off of his own problems. It’s a selfish and twisted thing to do. The only way he can rationalise it is how he spent an entire day with Louis for Louis’ sake. Tomorrow will be just for Harry, and he’ll make it count. Louis has a week left until he needs the skates and Harry knows there’s no way Louis could be on practice ice before his set date even if he wanted to with the way the schedules are set up. 

He winces as he slowly tucks the skates back into the green bag. A shirt tossed over it helps put the ugly mess out of mind. Harry’s made a lot of sacrifices of his own to get where he is, and he will likely never see Louis again once the skates are returned. 

One day. That’s all he wants. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis

His skates have been missing for three days. 

Three days he’s spent glued to Harry’s side between their separate schedules of practice and training. Every day he wakes and feels the world crack beneath him a little further. No one else knows, especially not Simon. His coach was the greatest witness to Louis’ reluctance to return to the spotlight. No doubt he’d bite into Louis for this and claim he’d done it on purpose. 

At some point Louis will have to tell someone. He really should have ordered in a new pair as soon as he noticed because that way he’d still have a chance to skate. But what would be the point? To skate on anything but the pair he’d worn through years of ice time into the perfect mould of his feet was to skate a level lesser than he was capable of. He knows he has to have the best skate of his life in order to win, and that isn’t going to happen in store stiff boots. 

He was right about Harry, he’s a good guy. Every morning Louis catches sight of him waiting by the gazebo on the Village path there’s a notch of relief. They’ve relaxed into the routine of it, their terse nod of greeting from the first day now a warm smile Louis gets completely blindsided by and consequently needs no help from the frozen ground to slip. He doesn’t fall on his arse because he’s got complete control of his body from years of training, except, it seems, when he’s around stupid hockey players too pretty for anyone’s good. 

All day Louis peeks around corners to watch stiff shoulders while Harry confronts his teammates, an obvious discomfort keeping him rigid throughout every interaction, yet all day he doesn’t bail out or make excuses. Harry’s reliable, and just as he said he would, he keeps going. Louis needs him to keep going. 

They’ve already parted ways for the day. Harry has the first of several games, called ‘circle chicken’ or something of equal nonsense. Louis wasn’t too interested in that part, he was more focused on politely asking-not-begging Harry to stop as many of his teammates as possible and ask about the bag situation. They’d only made it a third of the way through the team so far and he’s hoping Harry manages to catch a decent amount of those left while he’s in the locker room. Which is around the time when Louis immediately stops himself from thinking about what else Harry might do, or look like, in the locker room. 

Louis bounces his heels on the dense rubber mat of the training room. With one, two, three long strides he springs into the air with a high knee. He holds himself in a tight frame for the rotations until he lands backwards on his right foot with so much leftover force that he has to bounce out a few steps. 

His body angle during the rotation doesn’t threaten to tilt, he has enough time to get in and out of his frame, his knees are bent to just the right degree to launch and absorb the jump. It’s fine. Fine is not good enough. 

Louis sits next to his water bottle and long discarded jumper in a breathless huff on the bench. He nods to a pretty blond skater as she motions to take over the practice space he’s left. 

A hand clamping down on his shoulder makes him jump. 

“Louis, I need you.” Niall crashes into his side on the bench. He clings onto Louis with a desperate expression. 

“What’s it?” 

“She’s gonna murder me.” 

Louis narrows his eyes and leans sideways to see over Niall’s shoulder and past the woman he’d given his space to, spotting the lithe form of Niall’s partner stretching at a barre. 

“Doesn’t look particularly venomous to me.”

“Thing is, it’s a mask. Once you get close enough she’ll rip ya head off in one clean go of it. Trust me.” 

“She find out you’re doing cardio with someone else?” 

Niall winces, then avoids eye contact as he tilts his head to the corner of the room with the treadmills.

“So… speaking o’ that. May have slipped me mind to warn you ‘bout-” 

“Fucking fuck,” Louis blurts, not a subtle bone in his body.

It’s hypocritical, considering his own hatred of gawkers and gossip around his life, but the only other skater with enough buzz around their name to momentarily drown out Louis’ is Selena Gomez. And she’s pounding away on the treadmill in tight athletic pants that outline her two unbroken legs.

“I hadn’t heard she’d arrived.” 

Niall winces. “Ah, well she knows you’re here.”

“Niall,” Louis cuts with horror, realisation dawning. “Please tell me she wasn’t in your bed.” 

Niall’s eyebrows scrunch up helplessly, his hands raised in innocence. 

“To be fair, it wasn’t the bed where most of it happened.” 

Louis glares. “And you thought getting anywhere near her was a good idea?” 

“Well I can’t attest to any thinking really happening when certain actions were acted upon. It’s not her that’s got Hailee in a fuss anyways, the only thing to get that woman’s blood going is skating. I can attest to that.” 

Louis tries to keep his eyes on Niall as he speaks, but it’s like a magnetic force keeps pulling his focus to the female skater. A catastrophic training accident left her leg shattered at the height of the circuit two years ago, the midway point between Olympic competitions when athletes either committed or pulled back from chasing the gold. She’d spent a year relearning how to walk, and the next she dominated the European circuit. Her bounce back was both intimidating and highly inspiring to many. Louis wishes his story was half as admirable. 

He shakes his head and pulls back to what his mate is saying. “So you want me to… what?” 

“She can’t murder me if there’s a witness. Please lad, my mate, my saviour, don’t let me go.” His hand tightens on Louis’ shoulder. 

Louis rolls his eyes. 

“Right, and what if I had plans this lovely evening?” 

“Do ya?” Niall perks up.

The closest thing to a plan Louis has is watching telly in his room until he’s able to sneak down and use the treadmill, because even before he had jetlag to deal with he’d had issues sleeping through the night. 

After posturing eye contact Louis scowls and slumps with defeat. 

“Well, I could have had.” 

Niall pats him on the back. 

“C’mon, those American lads have their first game tonight. Say we go cheer them on?”

Louis’ heart quickens at the mere mention of the team. His scowl deepens when he realises it’s not just because of his predicament with them, but more about one player in particular. One with stupid curls. He wants to say no, but being at the game means there’s a slim chance he’ll be nearby when Harry finds out who has his skates. 

“Ya, s’fine.” He keeps his face in a frown as he shrugs, not wanting to sound too hopeful.

Sure, hockey. Loud crowds and watered down pints. Whatever. 

It’s not whatever. 

After a thorough shower for the both of them, he and Niall snag last minute seats and squeeze themselves like cattle into the stadium. They’re midway up the crowd. Close enough to clearly see the bold capital letters on the jersey above number 17, STYLES, as he appears on ice. 

“You know how to choose em, Lou.” Niall nudges him in the ribs. 

“You’re one to talk,” Louis shoots back. 

Niall rightfully turns a bit flush from the reminder of why they literally held hands on the way to their seats. He’d worried Hailee was just waiting to snatch him away and stuff his body in a corner somewhere. It was easier for Louis to simply go with it than fight. 

Louis looks to where Niall’s gestured and nearly laughs at the irony when Harry takes centre ice, because of course he’s the star of the universe. The puck drops and he stops laughing. 

Harry is lightning. Before the other team knows where the puck is, Harry’s streaking down the ice. His skates cut into the glossy surface with enough force to blow shaved ice with every slash. Louis can hardly keep his eyes on him as he zips around players in contention for the puck. As it always does, thunder follows. Several times Harry collides into the boards with such bone shaking calamity Louis winces in secondhand agony. 

Above the rink a forty foot screen highlights closeups, and it adores Harry. Nearly every second clip is an intense view of fierce aggression Louis has a hard time recognizing. Harry’s boyish face is completely altered by the severe grimace of a warrior in battle. It’s just a game, Louis wants to chide. But he knows it’s not. This is the Olympics, and these games are for life or death. 

Louis’ beyond grateful he’s not the only one to jump to his feet for all three goals the American’s score. Every time the air horn blows the stadium erupts into cheers, the Americans clearly having the larger turn out in the audience. After his pint is finished Niall slings an arm around Louis in joy. 

They’re in a similar position two days later as the Americans face off against Norway. For the first period Louis has a harder time keeping track of who’s who with all the red, blue, and white jerseys. It’s made clear when Harry practically skips through the opposing defence line. Five minutes left in the third and the jumbotron screen is showing a very different Harry. His game face has shifted into a cocky smile. 

Louis, generally as a rule, hates smiles like that. They always come paired with the douchey arrogance of jocks as they throw themselves around, but even someone who hates hockey would have to admit Harry’s talent is obvious, and his shit eating grin is well deserved as the puck slides over the defending goal line for the sixth time. It’s fucking hot, is what it is. 

And it’s still hot when the four of them are sprawled along the luxurious fireplace seating in the commons. Two post shower hockey boys, a half drunk irishman, and Louis. Who can’t stop staring at the post-game loose limbs of Harry’s sprawled form in the armchair across from him. There are drops of water on the tips of Harry’s curls and they run down the smooth line of his neck to disappear under soft cotton. Louis blinks. No one’s noticed his distraction yet, they’re all blessedly wrapped up in some story Niall’s telling that has them giggling along. 

Louis pats Niall’s thigh in parting and makes to go. 

“You leaving?” Harry’s big green eyes are on Louis before he’s even stood on both feet. 

Louis feels caught by the weight of his attention and mumbles the first excuse he can. “Gotta get some sleep, gonna train early before the gym’s packed.” 

Harry’s face turns down into something near a pout. Louis keeps his hands curled tight around his cuffs and bites his lip with effort not to say anything more, just nods his head in parting before heading for the doors. He’d congratulated both players when they’d met in the commons barely ten minutes ago, restraining himself in a similar fashion as now from doing silly things like hugging men he barely knew. They might have spent quite a few hours over the last couple of days together, but that doesn’t mean Louis really knows Harry. Besides, he’ll see him tomorrow. There’s another game he and Niall have already discussed attending. 

Extracting himself from Niall without telling his friend what he spent most of his days doing had taken a fair amount of insistence given Niall’s certainty that Hailee’s still set to murder, or worse, castrate him. At the last moment Louis had managed to push him off to the young Canadian boy. Louis has made an effort to block everything about the tall kid from his mind, doesn’t like seeing his easy smile and youthful excitement on a young skater at their first Olympics. It puts Louis off. Makes him draw stupid comparisons to the past. 

What he’s doing right now could be described as stupid. The most stupid. Because instead of trying to sleep like he’d said or even going to the gym to work himself to exhaustion, he starts running a bath. 

Dim lights and boiling water turn the small ensuite into humid tropics, a swirl of warm vanilla soothing his mind and slowing his fingertips as he strips one item at a time. One foot first he eases into the water, enjoying the fiery lick with a small gasp as his body adjusts to the scorching temperature. 

Fully seated he reclines until the water has embraced every inch below his chin. With a steadying breath, Louis closes his eyes and trails his hand down his torso. It drifts over his ribs, the small swell of his stomach, and the curve of his hips, until all five fingers wrap around himself. Behind his eyelids he imagines being under the fierce concentration of Harry’s face on ice, how it would feel to be handled with the strength so casually on display, the taste of the small bead of water as it rolled along Harry’s collarbone. 

He keeps his hand slow. Everything is unusually sensitive and flush with the heat. With each little swipe to the head of his dick he pulses on the edge. He’s quick to hold the base of himself, forcing his hand to stay still until he’s calmed down enough to stroke again. His left hand grips the rim of the tub in a tight white knuckled hold. Again and again he works himself to the brink of orgasm only to withdraw and wait for himself to settle. 

Louis’ breath grows ragged. He lets out a cry of unabashed anguish as he forces his hand to still. He’s lost count of how many times he’s stopped and sweat beads on his forehead. His chest heaves with panting breath as his will power battles against the instinctual press to keep going. 

He tastes salt on his lips, a mix of sweat and tears soaking his face. His hand trembles as he once more takes hold of his swollen cock. This time he allows himself to get lost in the searing bliss of an orgasm as it shakes through him. 

The groan that slips through his parted lips sounds suspiciously close to Harry’s name. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry 

“Good game yesterday, H!” Jeff slaps his back on the way to his cubby after morning practice. 

Harry winces as the force of the blow causes him to step sideways to keep his balance. 

“You good?” Liam asks with a raised eyebrow. 

Harry nods off his friend's concern, uninterested in explaining how much of a horrible person he is. 

His feet are planning mutiny. Five days in his backups have cost him the ability to walk without pain, let alone skate. He’d been lucky enough to have his practise skates readily available with the team’s gear manager. Unfortunately he’d broken a pair recently, which meant his old and perfectly worn-in practice skates became his game skates, the ones Louis currently has, and the practice ones he was using now were so new they still smelled like the store. 

A moan of relief falls out as he slumps on the wooden bench and slides the stiff skates off. He takes a moment to lean back and stretch out his feet, the feeling unlike any other. A hot shower, a gross amount of food, and a several day nap are all he wants in this moment. Which is pathetic, because he just pulled a Texas hat-trick and an assist yesterday at the fucking Olympic games. 

The rush of it was like sky-diving. He’d been falling through leagues of adrenaline, right until he’d walked into the commons and seen Louis curled by the fireplace in a soft oversized sweater with his little socked feet tucked beneath him. It had been like walking into a wall of guilt. Here Harry was having the time of his career, his life, while Louis was probably crying himself to sleep every night over his missing skates. 

They’ve spent so many hours wandering the village to track down players during the past week that Harry's been forced to admit they’ve crossed nearly every person from the list. His excuses for not confronting them during games or practice are running dry. There are only two days left until Louis is scheduled to be on ice, which means there’s two days for Harry to somehow figure out what to say to sort out the situation without ruining the tentative friendship he’s worked so hard for. 

After a shower to rival nirvana and a change of clothes, Harry makes his way to the gym on the floor above the common lounge for the first time. The team has been practising at the stadium and the training facilities there, and while all athletes competing on ice could technically do so, Louis had mentioned he enjoyed the convenience of the commons location across from his own accommodations because the rink was ten minutes down the road. 

The toxic rubber mat scent makes Harry wrinkle his nose on the first step. It’s soon forgotten. 

Louis. Arms stretched overhead to show off the exquisite line of his lithe body wrapped in sheer black nylon. Tight ebony pants distract Harry from noticing the smile Louis sends him until the boy is- oh God, he’s bending over. The moment his hands lay flat on the ground Harry’s heart flatlines. He forces himself to wrench his eyes to the ceiling, and then squeeze them shut, but it’s no use. Louis has the finest ass he’s ever seen and the image of it is burned forever into the back of his eyelids. 

“I’m almost done,” Louis says.

He’s sipping at his water bottle now and Harry doesn’t look away fast enough to not notice the shape of his lips circled around the bit. 

Harry blurts the first thing he can. “Nice mesh?” 

He winces, hoping it doesn’t come off as offensive. Luckily Louis chokes on a laugh and smooths his free hand down his sides where the translucent fabric of the skin tight long sleeve does nothing to hide the gentle curve of his waist, while the subtle narrowing of the solid front panel leads Harry’s eyes straight down to Louis’ groin. He flicks his eyes up and forces himself not to blush under the teasing look Louis’ giving him. 

“Test run on the first costume. Not bad, yeah?” 

Harry hums in agreement and attempts to distract himself by looking at the other skaters scattered around the space. He’s wearing sweatpants, for fuck’s sake, the last thing he needs is a semi. 

His plan works. He tilts his head at a couple over Louis’ shoulder. It takes several seconds of blatant staring to recognize Niall as one half of the most intimidating pair in the room. The two of them flow in sync like they’re made of the same matter. A snort next him brings his focus back to Louis. 

“Tad obscene, aint it?” 

Louis nods towards the couple and Harry looks just in time to see them transition into a definite crotch to crotch lift, the crude position juxtaposed with the serious looks on their faces forcing a yelp of laughter from Harry before he can stop it. He looks worriedly to Louis, afraid again of offending him, only to find his face scrunched adorably in laughter as he snickers at Harry’s embarrassment. 

“You’re fine. They’ve got their game faces on, even a pint wouldn’t distract Niall right now.” Louis pats him on the shoulder, “I need a few more minutes to finish up, you mind waiting?” 

“Sure sure,” Harry agrees easily and slumps over on a bench nearby. 

He doesn’t want to be _that guy_ so he pulls out his phone to scroll through something. Unfortunately the service on top of the mountain is shit and he’s left tapping at a blank screen in pretense. He’s thought about searching up Louis’ name and if he had full service he can’t guarantee he wouldn’t, especially after what happened yesterday. 

Harry’d been standing with Louis on a walkway bridge, peering at the frozen man-made creek below and idly bickering about the best milkshake flavor. 

“Strawberry is cute to look at and yummy to drink.”

Louis scowled. “Fake strawberry tastes like wax and syrup. Chocolate never lets you down.”

“I wasn’t aware we were talking about fake strawberries. The real deal beats chocolate any… What?” 

Harry straightened when he noticed Louis’ attention straying past him. There was a boy pointing at them and yanking on his mother's arm to drag her closer. Harry quirked a friendly smile. He loved this part of the job, the meet and greets with kids who have stars in their eyes. It’s a feedback loop of inspiration, their adoration spurring him on to do better and his performance encouraging them to join the sport.

“Surprised this hasn’t happened sooner, you got a pen?”

Louis didn’t respond, just watched the kid and mother approaching. The kid was so excited he was shaking. 

“Louis Tomlinson!”

Instead of the greeting he’d planned to say, Harry’s open mouth hung wide. He flushed with embarrassment while Louis’ naturally pale complexion turned near translucent. 

“Hi.” He squeaked and cleared his throat. 

Harry stared, confused. Had Louis never dealt with a fan before? Why was he clamming up like a preteen at a school dance? 

“I’m so glad you’re back, you’re my favourite! My costume is just like your Romeo routine and I’ve watched it a bajillion times and Coach says next year I’ll probably have quads and then I’ll be just like you!” 

“Wow,” Louis breathed like the air had been knocked from him. Harry hovered a little closer in case he was the one that fainted even though it’s usually the fans you had to be more concerned about on that one.

“Do you still get headaches? The kids in my class think you’ll drop out ‘cause of it but I think you’re gonna kick Zayn Malik’s butt. He always travels on his spins but you don’t because you’re incredible. Can you sign this?” 

“Sure,” Louis mumbled and took the items shoved into hands. He looked a bit lost and Harry was about to nudge him when he got with the program and scrawled something across the crumpled receipt the harried mother produced before handing it back. He even posed for an awkward photo with a stiff smile before the mother apologised and thanked them both while tugging the kid onwards. 

“Thank you Louis! Mom! I just met Louis Tomlinson!” 

Harry wanted to poke and tease, but the unsettled look on Louis’ face and the height of his shoulders told him to back off.

“Chocolate’s pretty good, I guess,” he shrugged. “Put a sliced strawberry and some whipped cream on top of chocolate? Now you’re talking.” 

Louis settled inch by inch, rolling his eyes at Harry’s only slightly exaggerated leer. There are a lot of things he would like to do involving whipped cream and Louis Tomlinson. 

“Heathen.” 

Harry liked to think the tone Louis used had been fond.

Harry still wants to press while sitting on the bench. Joining the NHL and making waves had made Harry accustomed to being noticed. It was doubly expected when in crowds of sports fans such as this. He started to pay closer attention to Louis after the signature incident, noticing the way eyes in the crowd around them would stick to Louis just as often as they did Harry, if not more. An itch rolls under his skin to know why, but it would feel like cheating to Google it so he’s glad to momentarily have the option forcefully out of his reach. 

He taps on the dark screen of his phone in pretense, so focused on not being a creep staring at everyone that he doesn’t realise what the blur in the corner of his eye is until the third time it happens. It’s Louis. 

Harry’s mesmerised as the skater takes two steps before defying every law of physics. There’s no other way to put it. Louis simply launches himself in the air and spins as fast as Harry can blink before landing backwards on one foot, not a sweat broken. No matter how many times Harry watches him repeat it, he can’t understand how Louis possibly generates enough force to spin as high and fast as he does. 

Through his veil of awe he realises Louis doesn’t seem to hold the same opinion of his efforts based on his pursed lips growing tighter with every revolution. It’s mystifying, because even though Harry’s never really seen it before, he’s pretty damn sure Louis’ pumping out perfect jump after perfect jump. 

Louis puts his hands on his hips and huffs in frustration after yet another impeccable jump, making Harry want to march over and sing him praises. There’s a telltale thud at his feet when he stands to do so. His phone lays face down on the ground.

“Don’t be broken, don’t be broken,” he prays under breath while delicately retrieving it. 

The screen is blessedly still in one piece when he flips it over and he sends a small thank you to whichever deity was looking out for him. 

By the time he’s stood up someone else has approached Louis. Harry hovers in the background and decides to wait by the bench instead of making it awkward. Louis has turned to face the newcomer, meaning Harry can’t tell what face he’s making when his shoulders hike to his ears, but he can see the other man clearly. 

He’s a walking adonis. Harry shamelessly judges him as they talk, analysing every inch of space between them disappearing as they lean towards each other and wondering what the model is saying to make Louis slowly untense his shoulders. An uncomfortable flip happens in Harry’s stomach. Something he doesn’t think about before he walks over. 

The other man ducks away before Harry reaches them and Louis turns just in time to give Harry a half-assed smile. 

“Sorry I kept you, gotta change before headin’ out.”

“Who’s that?” 

Harry curses himself when the words come out not nearly as casual as he’d wanted them too. Subtle. Louis shrugs while Harry stares at the unaware man over his shoulder. 

“Zayn,” he says while picking up the gym bag at his feet and not looking at Harry. “‘Nother skater.” 

“Your friend?”

“We were sorta a thing,” Louis says noncommittally. 

Harry only just stops himself from exclaiming in justification. He knew there was something he didn’t like about the guy. Sure enough a few feet away the model man, Zayn, how pretentious, jumps into the air just as Louis had in an effortless display of skill. 

“You’re competing against him?” 

“We’re friendly like,” Louis says as he loads his small gym bag onto his shoulders. “He knows. About the skates, I mean.” 

Of course Louis looks up right as Harry’s eyes widen with shock. 

“Are you still…?”

Louis quirks a smile, either out of fondness for his ex or in amusement at Harry’s awkwardness, he can’t be sure. 

“Nah, too much has happened. He’s a good guy, could tell something was up and I can trust ‘im.” 

“Can you?” 

“Yes.” And maybe Harry had been quick to ask because Louis’ answer feels like a stern reprimand. 

Harry ducks his head, embarrassed. Louis’ sneakers waver like he’s unbalanced, but given what Harry’s recently witnessed he’s got the impression it’s more mental than physical. There’s the barest trace of Louis’ heat along his side as he leans closer. 

“He thinks someone could be holding onto them on purpose.” 

Suddenly Harry’s very glad to be looking at his shoes. No doubt he would have given himself away, his mom always said he was such an open book. He bites hard on his cheek to turn the shock on his face into a grimace of pain.

“Do you believe that?” 

Louis sighs. Massages the strap over his shoulder. “Dunno. Might make most sense. Surely the tossers noticed by now, me names etched into the blades.” 

Louis turns on his heels and starts towards the locker room. After a moment's hesitation Harry follows. 

“Could it be a competitor?” 

Louis stops by the locker room door and leans in it’s archway, eyes narrowed in contemplation when he looks at Harry. 

“Doesn’t seem right.” He shakes his head. “This isn’t the nineties, we don’t go bashing each other's knees. No point of a win if you haven’t earned it.”

Harry’s fist tightens at the flash image of a bat being swung towards any part of Louis. A blink and it’s gone before he sees it reach the target, but the vivid aftershock keeps Harry’s tongue tied too long for a chance to reply. Louis shoves off from the wall with a sigh. 

“Gotta change,” he mutters and shrugs towards the changerooms. 

Harry keeps his eyes flicking around the gym while he waits. He follows the movements of the training athletes around him, their technique, their facial expressions, their clothes. Anything to keep him from thinking about whatever feelings are zinging nervously through his bloodstream and pooling in his belly. The moment Louis exits the changeroom Harry nearly jumps towards the door, eager to be on the move. 

He fights for smiles all evening. Through gentle needling he manages to convince Louis into accepting a hot cocoa from one of the vendors on the snowlined cobblestone streets, almond milk of course, and a flutter goes off in his stomach at the twitch of Louis’ lips every time he looks Harry’s way. It might only be because of the chocolate sauce smeared on the corner of his mouth, but Harry still counts it as a win. 

That was hours ago. Now the cold has seeped under their mitts and scarves to numb their skin and Louis’ frown etches deeper with every step Harry takes back to him from speaking to another teammate that, no surprise, did not have Louis’ skates. They’ve edged near a parking lot and the harsh lights cut Louis’ face into sombre lines of shadow. The uneven puff of breath visible in the night is the only reason Harry can tell there’s a shake to it, and when he finally reaches him he catches the extra shine in Louis’ eyes before he ducks his head to hide the way he rubs at his face. 

“Y’know what I was thinking?” Louis asks. 

Harry hums, a fist of fear clenching his ribs with the instant thought that he’s been made. Louis’ not a dunce. He probably realised days ago that Harry had his skates and has waited for him to come clean. 

“It’s not snowing.” Harry blinks, thrown off by the dark humour in Louis’ eyes as he tips his head towards the sky. “We’re in fucking Canada for the Winter Olympics and there’s no fucking snow, you know what I mean? Like, there are machines making crushed ice for skiers to jump on because there’s literally…” his words get tangled in a dark giggle. He spreads his arms to encompass the black night past the glare and take a deep breath to push out his finale. “No fucking snow!”

It’s an El Nino year, is what the news is saying. Warm winds or something. Harry didn’t pay it all too much attention considering his sport was played in a climate controlled ice box. He doesn’t offer his half-assed explanation to Louis. He shrugs like a chump and stuffs his hands into his pockets like maybe his jeans can hide their glowing red. Louis doesn’t seem done either.

“What are we even doing in a country that can’t fulfil the one stereotype it’s known for?” 

Harry looks away when Louis’ voice cracks near the end, both out of courtesy and to hide the emotions that plays along his own face. Louis’ been grumpy for the majority of the time Harry’s known him, testy and easy to snap back as often as he is to joke, but this is the first time Harry’s witnessed him truly upset. It’s been easy to ignore the weight of the matter, but now a hard stone lumps itself in Harry’s throat realising it was only easy for him because Louis had been keeping it tucked out of sight. He feels awkward and out of place and so glaringly obvious.

Louis rubs his nose, sniffles and blinks past tears Harry is selfishly glad don’t fall. If they did, Harry doesn’t even know what he’d do. 

“First thing you learn as a tot is how you’ve got two edges on a blade, yeah? Inside, outside.” 

It takes a drawn out second to realise Louis’ not being rhetorical and waiting for a response. 

Harry jerks his head. “Yeah, s’ same.”

Louis steps closer as he speaks with vigour. “It’s crucial to be on an edge. If you don’t pick one, you fall. If you pick the wrong one, you fall. If you don’t cut into the one you’re on deep enough,” Louis’ hands slap together in a startling smack, “you’re on your arse.” 

He’s inches away now, breathing heavily with emotion, hair tousled and cheeks flushed and eyelashes spiked. He looks exhausted and wrung out and still, somehow, full of fire. Harry’s starting to think they’re not truly speaking about the skate blades. Professional sporting meant sacrifices. He wonders what Louis’ were. 

“But that’s not really it.” Harry shakes his head slowly, grappling with the guilt clawing every nerve in his spine. Louis’ looking at him like a man hanging from a cliff and Harry has a feeling whatever he says right now is more important than he can fully understand. “The first thing you learn on ice is how to get back up.” 

Louis lets out a shaky breath that doesn’t tell Harry if he’s said the right thing or not. And maybe he’ll never know, but he hopes so. Louis ducks his head and steps back like he’s just realised how close he’d gotten. 

A single hiccup of dark laughter escapes him, matching the way his eyes have grown sharp. Whatever glimpse of softness Harry’s just witnessed, it’s once more hidden behind the wall Louis’ rebuilt. 

“I’ve spent four years trying to get back up. Won't even matter if I never make it onto the rink.”

Harry’s brows furrow. He’s known for a while Louis competed in the last Olympics, but he hadn’t looked into the results. He doesn’t even know where Louis normally ranks. Maybe he missed the tenth place cutoff, or maybe he just had a really bad skate. Maybe Harry will bite the bullet and actually Google his name like he swore he wouldn’t. 

“I chose a side, and I dug everything I had into it.” Louis shrugs in his oversized parka that makes him seem smaller than he is. “Starting to think I chose wrong.”

Harry is the worst sort of monster. One with a friendly face.

How did he let it get this far? To the point that Louis would question his entire life’s choice just because Harry had been selfish and wanted to live in a little daydream. He can hardly remember what had kept him holding onto the lie in the first place. Nothing was worth the look on Louis’ face now. 

Harry savours the moment one breath longer. Takes in the angle of Louis’ cheek and the shade of blue in his iris and the soft curls just brushing his ears. This is the last moment Louis Tomlinson will spend not hating him. Like the long exhale Harry lets out it drifts away in the night, here and then not in a blink. 

“I have to show you something.” 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis

He doesn’t know what to expect when Harry proceeds to lead him to House America. He’s heard about the unlimited condom situation, so he’s kind of gearing up for something like Harry pulling out his dick. Louis wouldn’t even be mad about it if that were the case, at this point he’s got enough vicious energy rolling around in him that could use an outlet. 

That’s not what happens. 

They stand in a room with two rumpled twin beds while Harry pinches his lip, face creased in thought. Louis hovers by the door to avoid interacting with any of the mess strewn about the place like the contents of both suitcases were thrown at a ceiling fan before finding their current homes. Harry sighs and crosses his arms, then immediately uncrosses them and places his hands on his hips, then licks his lips. 

“I have your skates?” 

Louis’ heart stops. Of everything he thought Harry might say, this was nowhere close to being on the list. 

“Are you taking the piss?”

Harry has the right sensibilities to duck his head. Louis can barely see through the avalanche of emotions obliterating his perception of this moment. Harry has his skates. Harry has had his skates this entire time. 

The nights he’s spent suffocating himself with his pillow to muffle the sobs. The hours he’s spent living in a daze of confusion, unable to comprehend just how fucked he was if he didn’t get them back before Simon arrived. His melt down in the car park they just came from. Harry’s known exactly where they were through all of it. 

So Louis does something he’s never done before and gets physically violent with a shove to Harry’s shoulders. 

“Having it on with the skating faerie like we’re in primary? My entire career hinges on this competition, do you have any idea how this will affect my sponsorships? My life?” 

Harry’s lips thin and his face drains as he easily backs into the wall. Rightfully fucking so. Louis steps back when he bends to rummage in a pile of laundry large enough to hide an animal while Louis continues to verbally hammer home every worry he’s had since the moment he got off the plane. Harry resurfaces with a skate bag. 

Louis stops mid word at the sight of it. Silently he takes the rough canvas and tears the zipper open in one rough pull. Sure enough black velvet skates sit innocently cradled together. 

Louis starts laughing. Once he starts he can’t stop.

“What is it?” Harry asks as he peers into the bag like he’s trying to understand the psychotic break Louis’ having. 

Oh God. This is too good. 

Louis pulls one of the skates from the kelly green bag and sure enough there it is, four centimetres small on the heel of the boot. A stitched Irish flag. 

“They’re Niall’s.”

Fuck. Poor Niall. No wonder he’d been hiding from Hailee all week, she probably wasn’t kidding about murdering him if she really did know his skates were missing. Louis tucks the skate back into its home and roughly shoulders the bag. 

“I’ll take them to him, given he hasn’t been murdered by his coach or partner yet. Clearly you’re not in a rush to do so yourself.” 

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to wait so long-”

“You’re a fucking cunt, Harry. I hope you take a puck to the face.” 

Louis doesn’t look back as he stomps down the hall and crashes out into the bitter cold. He swears Harry out the entire way, bumping shoulders with late night wanderers in the village until he finally reaches the skaters' housing. He climbs the stairs two at a time. How could he ever wish someone else to experience this certain brand of hell for a second longer than they had to? Honestly, what sort of kitten drowner was Harry to be so cruel?

Years of training have solidified Louis’ muscles, but his build remains lean. He wishes for the first and only time of his life he had the bulk to competently punch out a hockey player. 

The door opens before Louis can knock twice. Niall’s hair stands on end like he’s housing birds in there and his eyes are swollen, from lack of sleep or stress, or both, if Louis had to guess. He doesn’t. He knows exactly what it feels like. 

Niall’s red rimmed eyes widen at the sight of Louis and the green skate bag in his hands. He takes it carefully, one hand at a time, and presses it close to his chest. The zipper groans as Niall tugs it open. The second he can see enough to confirm the little stitched flag is where it should be, he deflates into Louis’ arms. 

“Christ Almighty, Louis. You’ve saved my life, you have. I can’t even tell you what it’s been like.”

Niall smooths his hand down Louis back one last time in his hug of comradery before they part. His cheeks are damp now and Louis doesn’t blame him a bit for it. 

Louis’ fists curl around the cuffs of his jacket. “Honestly, I’ve got a decent idea of it.” 

“Oh shite, it’s you!” 

Niall grabs the front of Louis’ coat and hauls him into the room, slamming the door behind him. 

“It’s me?” Louis mimics. Sweat is starting to gather uncomfortably beneath his layers after his sprint up the stairs. 

Niall doesn’t reply, his hands digging around his sheets until he surfaces with his mobile. Louis doesn’t catch on to what they say, but he does note the ‘cheers Liam,’ right at the end. 

“Liam Payne?” He scowls. What could the best friend of his new nemesis possibly have to do with this? 

Niall ignores him and swings open the closet to a row of meticulously organized hangers and wraps himself in a shirt. Louis huffs and unzips his jacket to level out the playing field, slipping it from his shoulders so they’re both in t-shirts and it no longer looks like they belong in different hemispheres. Niall’s still in shorts, but that’s Niall for ya. 

Speaking of which, both Niall and his shorts disappear in a blink as he dashes out the door. 

“What the bloody hell?” Louis calls after him down the hall. 

He’s ignored again as Niall bangs on a door with one fist, his other hand clinging to his freshly reunited skates like he’s never going to even piss without them in sight. The door opens to reveal a look that could kill. Hailee snarls and fists the front of Niall’s newly adorned shirt and drags him into the room, slamming the door so hard Louis jumps from across the hall. Muted yelling picks up behind it not a second later.

Louis is left in Niall’s empty room holding his overstuffed anorak. He sighs and pushes his arms back into the sleeves and pulls Niall’s door shut behind him, ready for another night of drowning in his bathtub and no idea what he’s going to say to anyone tomorrow at the first on-ice practice. He’ll have to disappear. Twenty years spent weaving his soul into ice only to run away with his tail tucked between his legs and let his career die with a whimper, his name fading from history with a mortifying footnote of withdrawal as his last mark in senior competition. 

He tugs the door handle once to make sure it’s fully closed and turns straight into the heaving broad chest of a winded hockey player. His automatic surge of anger is quelled instantly by the sight of baby blue canvas clasped in the man’s meaty hands. It is nearly identical to the one in Louis’ room, but unlike that one this bag holds black velvet boots with the delicate script of his name etched into the blades. 

Tears spring to Louis’ eyes at the sight of them glistening in the light. 

“Guess I woulda saved us a bit of trouble if I’d actually looked at them.” Liam sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.

Louis wants to knock him upside the head for it but he can barely separate his eyes from the holy sight of his skates cradled in his hands. This is what having a child must feel like, he’s certain.

Louis mutters for Liam to follow and leads him up a flight of stairs to his own room, handing off the hockey skates perched near the door. He tells him to ask Niall for the second pair, presumably Harry’s if it all lines up. 

“They’re onto something with that saying the most obvious answer is the right one. Niall and I have been trying to track our skates down for days, but I didn’t even think to ask you or Harry ‘bout it. Seemed too… obvious. Like we’d have known if it was either of you.” 

“That arse never asked you, did he?”

But then, Louis can’t even be sure Harry asked anyone. He never got involved in the conversation, just watched from afar and waited for Harry to return with an answer. What had he been playing at wasting both of their time all these days? 

“I knew something was up with him,” Liam admits with his skates shoved under his arm like a sack of flour. “His foot work has been off every game. I thought maybe the atmosphere was getting to him.”

Louis hums. He doesn’t want to spend a second longer thinking about the man, but a tiny part of his brain recalls what he’s seen of Harry on ice. If a four goal game was ‘poorly’ for him, Louis can’t even fathom what it would look like to have Harry at full steam. Not that he ever plans to know, mind. Hockey is a sport for brutes and Louis has better things to occupy his time with. Like bubble baths. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry

There had never been a way for things to go well, considering, but Harry was still pretty certain things had gone particularly bad. Barely a word had been squeezed out in apology before Louis stormed away. And it was fair and completely deserved, but Harry still felt squirmy two days later. Hours spent tossing around in bed every night while thinking of everything he could and should have said made him strung out and vibrating with nervous energy to do something to make the situation better. 

He hadn’t quite figured out what that something was going to be yet. It was a work in progress. 

Which is how he ended up sitting in the hard curved plastic of arena seats losing feeling in his toes seven hours before he’s due to be on Olympic ice. If the amount of bruises he’d acquired during practice the last couple of days had taught him anything, playing a full game tonight without clearing his head of this whole incident would be impossible. 

So now he was here, hoping he could catch Louis leaving practice and say whatever sounded sincere enough to quiet the nagging in the back of his head. He felt bad, sure, but he personally couldn’t afford the distraction with Round Robin coming to an end. As one of the top six hockey countries, it had never been any question their team would make it through and with the real deal games hanging on the horizon Harry needed to buckle down and focus on his own problems. 

The figure skating women are on ice now. They’re pretty, magical things flitting through the air and gliding weightlessly like ballerinas. Their grace is no doubt hard earned through years of perfecting the angle of fingertips. When Harry’s chin dips and startles him from drowsy to alert for a countless time he hopes it’s not painfully obvious. 

Luckily the ladies don’t send a single glance his way. Their razor sharp focus keeps them intent on whatever flippy-spinny things they’re supposed to be doing. Not a single smile is to be seen the entire time and Harry knows his own face can get a little dark when he’s got his mind set on ice, but fucking hell, these girls look ready to murder every other skater on ice given the chance. 

After the ice is emptied the zamboni makes it’s leisurely stroll around the rink to resurface it, leaving the surface glistening like polished glass. Harry clenches his hands a few times and stomps his feet, wiggling around to work some blood through the extremities. Within five minutes of going on ice he’s usually soaked in sweat, so he may have forgotten just how cold sitting still in the cement ice box can be and worn a few layers too little. He’s half certain it’s colder in here than it is outside on top of this stupid mountain.

Somewhere between blowing hot air on his fingers and fighting his hair caught in the zipper of his jacket the men take to the ice. They warm up in a similar manner to each other by skating lengths and bending knees, but it’s just as clear as it was with the woman that while on ice at the same time, they are not skating _together._

Hours spent admiring every curve of his figure make Louis damn easy to single out. The classic cut of his trousers and rolled sleeves of his t-shirt mold him into a more masculine silhouette than usual, yet do nothing but accentuate the contours of his lithe muscles. Particularly the backside. 

A flying blur of red interrupts Harry’s view. The floppy haired kid he’s seen chatting with Niall. He lands sharply in a way that’s not quite as balanced as the women Harry had seen earlier and it’s like a floodgate has been opened. Suddenly everyone on ice is flying through the air at speeds incomprehensible. Everything Harry saw earlier is child's play compared to the astonishing feet of athleticism he witnesses now. 

Rabidly his eyes track Louis. His muscles are loose and yet perfectly poised from the barest flick of his fingers to the angle of his free foot to the tilt of his chin. Immediately it’s clear he’s one of the top skaters on ice in the group of eight, though Harry pays the others little attention. He’s caught off guard when Louis stops centre ice. Harry leans forward over his knees to try and see what’s happening while his pounding heartbeat marks time. Someone must have cut the music, though Harry doesn’t realise it until something new breaks the silence. 

High strings and teasing piano. Sharp violin strikes Louis into action, his hips twisting and rolling with the tempo of the music as his skates float. He moves with so much speed Harry can feel the wind every time he passes the boards. A complete vision, perfect in every way as he moves through complicated footwork. Tight little body launching into the air and landing like a fallen leaf meeting a still water pond. Jump after jump, moves that bring his face inches from the ice as he covers the expanse of it from end to end. He’s nearly finished, Harry doesn’t know how he knows, but his heart is in his throat and he can taste the finale coming. 

Louis morphs into a spin so fast he’s a blur with the intense beat of a snare drum winding him up. He’s still spinning as another skater draws close, going through their own routine seemingly oblivious to Louis’ behind them as they raise their foot. In a flash of light the other skater's blade catches Louis. 

Louis hits the ice. 

Everyone in the rink freezes. Harry’s lungs seize. Louis remains motionless on the ice, cupping his face.

Harry rushes to the edge of the rink as fast as the rules of physics allow. It’s a useless gesture when he’s stopped by the sideboards. Louis’ already on his feet by that point with the help of another skater. The ex. Though he doesn’t look like an ex when his arm wraps around Louis’ shoulder and their heads bend close together in a quiet conference. 

Harry’s fists clench and unclench with impatience at his own incompetence. Even if he could have tended to Louis, the skater most likely would have brushed him off before ever letting him close enough to touch.

Slowly the room melts into movement as the spectacle dissipates. Harry eases into a first row seat and stays put for the rest of the session. Louis does a few slow laps while periodically licking at his finger and on a close pass Harry glimpses a slice across his knuckles. He wants to tell Louis to get a medic, get them bandaged, put some ice on them and keep the hand elevated. But Louis probably wouldn’t stand in his presence long enough to hear it. 

Harry works a hand through his long hair and toys with the gnarled tangles matted in his curls, tugging impatiently despite the pain on his sensitive scalp. There’s no way Louis hasn’t noticed him now. Not at this range. Yet he doesn’t spare a single glance Harry’s way even though he must feel Harry’s eyes burning holes through him. It’s undeniable, then. Louis hates him, and Harry… it’s the furthest thing from hate, how he feels for Louis. 

Louis works on smaller elements for the rest of his time on ice with a wide berth between him and the other competitors. Just as the clock on the sports board ticks over to announce the end of the practice time Harry stands and readies himself for whatever sort of apology he can muster if he can manage to swallow down his worry over the accident. 

A tug on his sleeve halts him. 

“You dropped this.” A friendly stranger holds up his mobile. Harry pats his slanted jacket pocket and confirms the damn thing is empty.

“Thanks,” he mumbles and grabs it quickly only to turn around and find the blank white face of the rink already cleared. 

He can’t see shit over the cacophony of nylon clad skaters fresh off ice and those preparing in exaggerated stretches to go on, Louis' short stature no doubt aiding his ability to get away without Harry catching a single glimpse. 

With a sigh Harry shrugs his hands deep into his pockets. He can’t believe he wasted an entire morning sitting here only to miss his moment. Clearly Louis’ avoiding him, which means Harry’s going to have to do something more than bump into him.

“Harry!” Niall gives him a pat on the shoulder before Harry even looks at him, the Irishman smiling broad in charcoal athletic wear and tousled hair. “Had us all chasing tails, didn’t they? Liam dropped your skates off all right?” 

Harry ducks his head with guilt. “Yeah, sorry ‘bout not getting them to you sooner.”

“Got ‘em now, that’s what counts. Know you didn’t mean any harm.” Niall smiles without restraint. 

His reaction surprises Harry, a clear difference between his easy manner and the tension rolling off of Louis. Did Louis not tell Niall the whole story? 

“You do? I mean, seems pretty quick to forgive.” 

“Not everyone is, Louis being one of ‘em, but you came clean in the end and I can tell just by lookin’ at you,” he nudges him, “you’re a good guy. Promise a few days from now Louis won’t even remember this happening.”

“Niall,” A stern voice calls. 

The door to the rink opens and a fresh wave of skaters take the ice. Niall jerks his head towards his glaring partner. 

“That’s my cue. Chin up, H!”

Niall joins hands with his partner and together they take their first few strides on ice so smoothly it’s like they’ve melded into one being. Harry stares after them with something like longing cloying the air. 

Looking at his phone Harry’s met with a fresh crack in the screen fracturing his reflection. 

His pulse is palpable in his thumb pressed on the glass. His heart hasn’t stopped racing since the moment Louis lay still on the ice. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis

Practice was bollocks. Utter complete bollocks. Louis tears the skates from his feet with harsh pulls on his laces until he can kick them free in a clatter of chrome plated steel and shaved ice, paying no mind to the sting in his knuckles. He’d been having a good skate despite that bastard Harry breathing down his neck the entire session like he hadn't interfered enough with Louis’ life. 

Settling into his opening pose had felt right. The imperceptible rotation of the earth, the click of the clocks second hand, the chilled air in his lungs. All of it had come together for a fucking phenominal skate, landing all of his quads with flourish, nailing his triple axel to double loop combo and stabilising right on the sweet spot of his rocker for the final spin until that blasted American forgot basic rules they’d all known since they could waltz jump. Skaters with their music playing had right of way, which meant you got the fuck out of their way as they practised their programme. Unless you were Johnny Weir. 

Louis yanked his microfiber cloth from his bag and picked up a skate to wipe the blades in severe little circles. Colliding with the unforgiving ice… it brought memories rolling around in swells like a raging sea inside him. 

“Hey,” a gentle monotone accompanies the trainer clad toe poking his calf. 

Zayn’s golden eyes are no less omniscient for their gentle familiarity. He used to be the only person to understand Louis, but already he can feel the distance between them. Things happened and things felt that Zayn had no idea about. There’s a canyon between them these days and it's a bit disorienting having to find their footing with each other again like this. 

“No more flutz for you I bet, major improvement on that.” 

Louis nods in thanks with a tight smile. 

Zayn’s talking about his lutz, one of the easiest jumps to screw up on the take off. You could still launch and stick the landing perfectly, but the keen eye of the judges and their cameras caught the edge you took off on and if it was the wrong one the jump was dubbed a flutz, costing precious points. In a half lit training arena long after the janitors had locked up, Louis had spent hours soaked in sweat carving his edges deep to make sure he never made such a stupid mistake again. 

Zayn settles onto the bench within reach. Louis’ legs cock at awkward angles in front of him with a skate limp in his hand, the one holding his cloth rubbing absently at the tip of his nose. He tilts his head in a futile attempt to sway his matted fringe out of his face. 

“Thank you for…” 

The words to explain how stupidly humbled and utterly grateful he’d been the moment Zayn grounded him during practise are too heavy to push from his lungs. Their history is woven so close together, from juvenile friendship as they were coached on the same ice to the media-fed rivalry that instigated their relationship nearly out of spite alone, to the moment Louis tore away without warning and left nothing but frayed edges between them. 

Zayn shrugs it off, but not in a dismissive way. More to be merciful. He knows, Louis can tell by the softening around his mouth and curve of his shoulders. Zayn always had a way of knowing. It was Louis who struggled to connect with the world and read the people in it. 

“My win won’t count unless you’re on that podium next to me, Louis. Nice shiny silver ‘round your neck.”

Louis knocks Zayn’s shoulder with a slow smile. 

“Fuckin’ keep wishing, Malik. See how you like being the shorter one for a change.” 

A rough hand musses his hair before Louis can dodge it. 

He swats good naturedly as Zayn walks away with a last chuckle, “Dream on old man.” 

Louis’ mouth twists at the easiness of their well worn snipes. 

Zayn was an old comfort he’d been both dreading and anticipating when rejoining the competitive circuit. Over the events leading up to these Olympics their rivalry made sports headlines as they flip flopped first and second place by fractions of points, the media stoking the fire of a great showdown between the two to finally prove who was the better skater. 

Zayn was his biggest opponent here, but that was on ice in front of a judging panel and rolling cameras. Off ice Zayn had shown nothing but elegant patience fostering something like a tentative friendship, offered to Louis like an olive branch. Louis grasped at it, needed it desperately to ground himself on ice today, but he knew whatever romantic spark had been between them was long stomped out. 

The helpful hand wasn’t enough for Louis to attempt anything more than the double rotation jumps for the rest of practice like he was some green novice and not a fucking Olympic athlete. 

He jams his meticulously dried skates into their canvas bag and shoulders it. Zayn has helped elevate his mood from the rock bottom pit he’d been in, but he’s still not completely over wasting perfectly good ice time on something as stupid as nerves. Fuck. What was Simon going to say? 

The thought of his coach drags him back down and by the time he’s stomped into his room and shoved his equipment into the closet he’s returned to grumbling about the entitlement of Americans and their lack of anything resembling respect. Which one he’s talking about, the hockey player or figure skater, he doesn’t define even in his head. 

Louis’ curled on the closed lid of the toilet in oversized sweats watching the porcelain tub fill with steaming water when there’s a knock at his door. 

“Shite, look at you.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Louis hums.

Niall rolls his eyes and shoulders his way into the room. Louis makes a show of belatedly waving an arm in a ‘come on in,’ gesture Niall misses and clearly doesn’t need. 

“Is that vanilla? Sexy.” The blond pokes his head into the en suite and now it’s Louis’ turn to shove past him to turn the running faucet off. 

“You’re not invited.” 

“That’s not nice. I came all the seven stairs up here to invite you out on a lovely evening with me.”

“Hailee’s not going to murder you anymore, she needs you to win gold. Whatever maiming she does afterwards is well deserved considering you knew Liam had figure skates sitting in his lap.”

Niall holds up a finger to make a point. “I had no way of knowing those were yours, I didn’t even know yours were missing too. We all held things lil’ close on that one.”

Louis crosses his arms and grumbles while Niall dips his hand in the steaming water, the other toying with the empty packet of scents and wrinkling his nose with a choke when he brings it to his face and practically inhales it. 

“Lovely as this is, you’re gonna need to reschedule.”

“Think I’ve earned a proper night to meself.” 

Niall gives him a pointed stare.

“Louis. You’ve been having nights to yourself every other day. You are on top of a mountain with thousands of athletes and an army of adoring fans. I was there today, Lou. I know what’s going on in that fluffy little head of yours, but this is the last time you will be in the eye of this storm and I’m not letting you spend it wallowing in vanilla scented self pity.” 

Louis crosses his arms with a flare of attitude, but he’s unable to lash back with a rebuttal before Niall’s poking him lightly in the chest. 

“Your life doesn’t happen only when skates are on your feet. Everything before and after you step onto the rink, that’s what shines through.”

The finger on Louis’ chest moves before he can duck and Niall catches him on the nose. 

“Now get out of your give-up pants and enable me. Our boys face the great maple leaf tonight and they’re gonna need all the support they can get.” 

Louis rolls his eyes to shake off the serious moment. “You lost me once you mentioned the bastards.”

“Liam’s not so bad. C’mon, I can only get rat arsed if it’s social.” Niall nudges him towards the closet. 

“Since when have you needed my assistance being social?” Louis retorts just to be stubborn. 

“Oi, I want to enjoy one of the last nights at my last Olympics with my best skate mate. So sue me.” 

Louis grumbles at that, turned soft by Niall’s surprising nostalgic streak. Not one to deny an Irishman the chance to drink, he casts his gaze into the depths of his closet to find something nicer than the trackie set he’s in. Not because he has anyone to impress, mind. For himself. Naturally. 

The game starts on the wrong edge, so to speak. Halfway through the third period the Americans have limped themselves to three pucks in net, while the Canadians have smashed out five, two of which happened within the same minute like they were tossing biscuits in a basket. It’s painful to witness. 

Speaking of painful, Harry’s check is a literal lumberjack. Not that Louis particularly cares or pays attention to the bright 17 flashing about, even takes a bit of satisfaction the first few times Harry gets tossed around like a wet mop, but there’s a line between justice and cruelty. Harry’s not small, Louis remembers with more detail than he’d like just how not small he was when pressed against his back during their night out, yet he’s got absolutely nothing on this guy. All night he’s been chasing the puck and struggling to maintain hold of it. 

There’s an exciting moment he manages a breakaway, screaming down the rink and toes the blue line before making the shot, only for the puck to rebound on the post. The whole crowd cheers at his loss. 

“Ouch,” Niall winces in sympathy. 

Louis watches Harry turn to join the rest of the players already racing towards the other end with a drag to his skates. He doesn’t regain the puck for the rest of the game. 

As they walk down the stadium steps Louis and Niall stick out like solemn pallbearers in the cheering Canadian crowd. Niall drags them to a half-hidden pub tucked under the daytime retail stores, it’s small size and hidden location keeping the occupancy levels manageable despite the rambunctious celebrations breaking out at other well advertised establishments. While Niall sets himself up with both elbows firmly planted on the bartop to secure their position, Louis ducks out. 

Simon would kill him. Simon _will_ kill him if he catches even the faintest scent of it. Still, Louis tucks a cigarette he palmed from a stranger and shares a light with someone passing by. The first drag is a blanket of warmth he closes his eyes and sinks into just as he would scalding bath water. He’s kicked the habit, hasn’t bought any in years, but given how he feels… He can’t even describe everything he feels. 

Being in an Olympic arena again, having people he doesn’t know say his name, being around the old crowd. The new crowd. He’s pissed at Harry. What angers Louis more is that he’s not truly upset over the fact Harry held onto the skates, he’s upset because he can’t understand why. 

Louis had thought they were verging on friendship there for a moment. Harry made him laugh, they’d talked about menial stuff like the best laundry soap for sports gear and music they listened to. Hours spent idly tucking away little details about Harry into his mind without realising. It just makes Louis angrier that he knows the exact placement of the beauty mark on the jaw of the person he currently hates most. 

The world has a unique sense of irony. Louis’ forgotten all about savouring his ilicit cigarette by the time he’s worked down to the filter, more agitated than he had been when he stepped out. He stubs the butt on the ground and looks for a rubbish bin. Everyone has celebrations they’re attending indoors it seems because the streets are near empty, allowing him to spot the closest bin a few metres down. Just as he tosses it in he sees the devil himself. 

Harry’s shoulders are hunched with his fists crammed into skinny jean pockets not meant for a credit card, let alone hands his size. Louis wavers on the spot, wanting to duck into the pub where Niall’s no doubt scaring away people trying to commandeer Louis’ vacant stool and marching up to the man causing him to break nearly a year free of smoke in his lungs. He settles for staying on the spot and letting Harry approach him. 

The surprised double take Harry does is enough to tell Louis he hasn’t been tracked down on purpose, which is nearly more annoying than the alternative. 

“Louis-”

“You played shite tonight.” Louis cuts him off before he can start. 

“Well I had a bit on my mind.” Harry counters defensively. 

“Oh really? Wonder what that’s like.” 

Harry grimaces at Louis’ pointed glare. “I don’t do well when people don’t like me.” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so unlikable.” 

Harry’s voice gets tight with impatience, like he’s the one with reason to be pissed right now. He gets his hands out in a huff. “I fucked up, I know that. Will you let me apologise?”

“If that’s what you’re tryna do, you’re doing a piss poor job of it.”

“I had no right to do what I did. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you as soon as I found out.” 

Wow. Poetic. 

“Is that all?” 

Harry shrugs. Louis turns his back and marches determinedly away. Niall will have no problem downing the pint meant for him, most likely gone lukewarm the way it’s meant to be by now. 

He tilts his head over his shoulder to call back, “Apology not accepted. Fuck off.” 

“Louis!” Harry jogs after him. “Come on, tell me what I have to do!” 

Louis doesn’t mean to stop, but unless he wants to attempt literally bulldozing over Harry he’s got little choice. Harry’s curls are wet from his post-game shower and Louis glares at their easy perfection. Louis’ own hair slicks to his scalp when it’s wet. Damn it, maybe he will test his luck. He goes to shove past Harry and is surprised at how quickly the man flinches from Louis’ admittedly weak push. 

The confusion clears when he recalls the audible slam of impact Harry took multiple times on ice, some he even fell fully to the ice for. As much as Louis had been avoiding Harry’s face straight on he does so now and sees the swollen cut on his bottom lip and a tightness to his eyes that doesn’t belong there. It doesn’t alter the fact that Louis’ still pissed at him, but he’s got enough pity to give him one more chance. 

“Saying some fancy words so you can feel good about yourself again ‘aint gonna cut it. You wanna apologise? Fine. Tell me why you did it in the first place.” 

The second of hesitation is too long for Louis’ patience. A gust of bitter wind reminds Louis he’s left his jacket in the pub with Niall, so he turns around again, back towards where they started. Only because he can’t get into his room without the key in his jacket pocket. 

“Louis, I’m trying. Please give me a minute.” 

“It can’t be that hard for you to tell the truth for once.” 

“It is when you hate me and I...” Louis pauses long enough for Harry to lick his lips and keep going. “I’m an idiot, okay? I didn’t know I had your skates until after we’d started looking. By then we’d hung out a bit and I thought if you got them back you’d stop having a reason to spend time with me. It was selfish and- and I didn’t think it through.”

There’s a long moment as Louis chews it over. Or pretends too. He’s too cold to actually think about what Harry’s saying and all he really wants to do is get his fucking jacket back.

“You’re right. You’re an idiot.” Louis affirms bluntly. 

“I just wanted to spend time with you!” Harry calls after him. “Being around you is addicting, okay? I barely have time to see family back home when I’m training, let alone make any real friends. You of all people should know what that’s like.” Louis does, is the thing. Hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it, in fact. “It was easy to pretend you actually wanted to hang out with me.” 

“That’s why it hurt so much,” Louis admits. “I did.”

Another wind, stronger this time, tears through his thin long sleeve and locks Louis in a full body shiver. 

Harry takes a half step towards him, stopping when Louis leans away to avoid him. “Where’s your coat? It’s fucking freezing.”

“Niall’s keeping it cozy, should get back to him.” Louis foot hovers to do just that, but he hesitates. 

Harry’s curled into himself again, just the way he’d been when Louis first saw him walking down the street. He looks miserable. And yeah, he’d fucked up and Louis was still pretty sore about it, but he wasn’t lying about enjoying the time they spent together, anxiety over skates aside. Harry’s had a shitty night and Louis knows he hasn’t been very easy on him either. 

He balances awkwardly on the outsides of his feet, wavers, then plants his feet solidly as he speaks before he can talk himself out of it. 

“You wanna join?” 

Louis can hardly control his eye roll when Harry’s effort to hold back a blinding smile completely fails, the doofus’ dimples obvious from here as he gives a restrained nod. 

Louis leads him down the cold stone steps into the warm burrow of a pub. Niall’s exaggerated laugh makes it easy to spot him at the half filled bar top, chatting animatedly with the man behind the counter. Louis brushes his shoulder into him as he sits. 

“Good to see ya lad.” Niall gives Harry a pat on the shoulder and a wink when he spots him taking the stool beside Louis. “What a sham of a game. Got away with murder, he did.” 

Harry shrugs out of his coat and scrunches a hand through his hair. “Clearly not all Canadians are nice.” 

Niall nods and takes a sip from his pint. “‘Cept Shawn. You met him? Bloody puppy dog of a boy. Lemme treat you to a drink, mate. Oi, Chase!” 

The bartender greets them with a head of shaggy hair and easy smile. Niall’s quick to fall back into whatever banter they’d had going before Louis and Harry arrived, his strong Irish lilt clashing with the Australian cadence of the bartender. 

By the time the guy turns away to make the drinks Louis and Harry have gotten absorbed in an idle game of who can spin the thick coasters the longest. Louis’ winning. Not that they’re counting.

“Shawn’s landings need work, surprised he’s not in pairs with shoulders like his.” Louis tilts his head towards Niall, just catching enough in his peripheral vision to swat Harry’s hand away when the lad tries to tip over Louis’ still spinning coaster. He keeps his eyes on Niall but smiles, knowing behind him Harry is probably pouting.

“Partnerships not for everyone,” Niall says with a bit of bite. Louis frowns. He should have a real talk with Niall about what’s going on with him and Hailee, everything he’s missed.

“How’d your skate go today?” Louis asks, realising he’s again spent so much time worrying about his own pitfalls he hasn’t bothered asking how Niall’s practice had gone. 

Niall shrugs loosely, but there’s a twitch of a smile and a light in his eyes making Louis hopeful. “Not a lick out of line, got a good feeling about this one.” 

Perspiring glasses filled with amber line up in front of them. Like a knee jerk reaction Louis opens his mouth to protest despite Niall’s generosity. But he’s already crossed the line tonight with the cigarette and when both men on either sides of him take satisfying pulls from their own pints Louis realises the thing is: he wants to. He wants to be the lad enjoying a pint with his friends, not worrying about caloric balances and biologic consequences. 

So he does what he wants. It shouldn’t be such a revelation, shouldn’t make the ale turn sour in his mouth as he chokes it down or make his head spin with nausea like he’s jumped from the ledge of a building. But it does. 

His coaster is still spinning. He slaps it down and plops his pint on it. Niall excuses himself to the loo not long after, not surprising given the amount Louis witnessed him drowning his sympathetic losing sorrows in during the last period of the game. Louis taps his feet on the rungs of the stool, nerves suddenly humming now he’s once more alone with Harry. 

“Watched your practice today,” Harry admits. 

“Didn’t notice.” Louis shrugs like he’d been indifferent to the eyes he’d felt on his back for an hour forty this morning. Harry can probably tell he’s being force casual but Louis doesn’t want to really discuss what happened to make him momentarily forget anything and everything to do with Harry Styles. 

Louis crosses his arms to surreptitiously hide his stinging knuckles from view. The cuts aren’t deep, but they sting with every twitch of his fingers, impossible to ignore. He stares down the bubbles drifting slowly to the top of his beer and waits for some comment about the incident he’d rather like to forget already. 

“You’re beautiful out there, Louis. It’s like you paint emotion into the ice.” 

Louis turns in surprise to meet eyes shining with sincerity. 

Harry is the first to look away as he toys with his bottom lip. Louis is oddly hung up on it, wanting to know everything about what Harry thought about his routine. What he thought of the music choice, his favourite part of the choreography, if he held his breath when Louis jumped. 

“I was really worried at the end. I didn’t think you’d want me around, but I had to stop myself from storming out onto the ice.” 

Louis’ glad Harry’s looked away now. It gives him the chance to swallow the lump in his throat. In the mirror behind the liquor shelf he sees Niall on his return from the loo and is half relieved to have an easy escape from the full conversation looming on the other side of this topic. Half relieved, and half something else. 

His voice is flat when he says, “It happens.”

Because it does. It has.

Louis’ eyes catch on the millimeters of space between the remaining liquid and the rim of the glass. Niall rejoins them before someone can say something else. Louis doesn’t catch a single word either man beside him says the rest of the night. 

By the time he crashes into his room he’s tripping towards the toilet with acid burning his throat. 

The measly sip of beer and everything he had for dinner comes up in gruesome heaves. He’s left shaking and sweating, with snot and tears tracking down his face as he weakly fumbles the handle. It’s been years, near a decade actually, since he’s done this on purpose. 

A horrific giggle slips through his lips. Today truly was a slip into every bad habit he’s ever had. There’s a difference, he knows, between smoking a pack a day and an annual-at-most light up. There’s a difference between scheduling his meals around access to a loo and his weak stomach revolting once in a blue moon. 

There’s a difference between waking in a hospital bed and the seven-centimetre plasters he has decorating his knuckles. 

When laying on the cold bathroom floor in an empty room in a foreign country, it really doesn’t feel like it. It feels like it could be any day from four or five years ago when every waking moment felt like this. He closes his eyes as the cooling sweat and chilled tiles seep out his warmth. There’s a _difference_ between then and now. Because now he’ll get up in a minute to have a shower, eat something simple but filling, and stretch out the tension of the day before climbing into bed. 

But right right now? He needs a minute to savour the memory of a deep American voice from earlier in the night. 

_"You’re beautiful."_

⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆


	2. Part Two - Competition Week

### PART TWO - COMPETITION WEEK

⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

##### Louis 

Louis tugs his sleeves a little tighter around his fists. It’s not the chill of the rink making him clench up, nor the thrum of nervous energy in the crowd as six pairs of skates spill onto freshly surfaced ice. 

“You sure you don’t want tea or hot chocolate? Might warm your fingers up.” Big green eyes look innocently concerned at him and- and _damnit._ Harry’s knee nudges into Louis’ thigh again. Louis tugs his sleeves a little tighter around his fists, just like the last time it happened. 

“‘S fine,” Louis mutters and wiggles deeper in his plastic arena seat. He adamantly doesn’t look across Harry’s stupidly broad shoulders or at Niall’s no doubt sly winking face. 

It’s not a date. It’s not. Niall’s with them, for fuck’s sake. Really, it’s all Niall’s fault they’re here in the first place. Apparently one of the things he’d forgotten talking about at the pub the other night was going to watch the pairs figure skating together as a triad. Louis would have gone with Niall anyway to reinstate their tradition of personally criticizing their fellow ice competitors, letting Niall whinge about how lackluster their creative elements are compared to the complexities of ice dance. 

The realisation that this is happening now, that the ice games officially start today with the Pairs competition, means the countdown is steadily ticking towards Louis’ own time centre ice. He’d be more concerned about it if he weren’t so bloody annoyed right now. 

What he hadn’t planned on was Harry joining them, and not only that but Niall had snuck himself into the row of seats before Harry’s long legs had stumbled into the narrow strip of cement, leaving Louis to yell across Harry’s big head if he wanted to converse.

This, too, would have been fine. If Niall hadn’t started taking the piss and texting Louis every three seconds about the minute interactions happening between Louis and Harry. Things Louis’d thought nothing of when they’d been doing them in public while people-watching over the past week, but now that Niall was giving him a play-by-play Louis was second guessing every breath he even took. 

The Arse:  
_I know ur playin the long game, gotta let your fingers get proper chill so you can ask to hold his hand_

Louis rolls his eyes and tucks his phone between his thighs without replying. He reaches under his seat and pointedly yanks out the thin square of tightly folded flannel. With a single little flap to spread it out he lays it across his knees. 

“Is that the blanket you had on the plane?” 

“Not all of us function like space heaters, Harry.” 

Harry smiles. “Just curious, like the design is all.” 

Louis smooths a hand over the snowflakes pattern. “Me mum picked it out. You can’t share if that’s what you’re gunning for.” 

Harry’s grin widens as a shake of his head makes his curls shine in the bright lights. “No need. Doc says I’ve got excellent blood circulation.” 

Louis’ phone buzzes under his leg. He narrows his eyes over Harry’s shoulders and sneaks a peak.

The Arse:  
_Ask him where his blood circulates 🍆 👀_

Louis scowls and locks the screen. By the time he looks up again the ice is being cleared by all but one couple. Beside him Harry goes twitchy as the entire arena once buzzing with noise settles into silence. 

He leans into Louis’ side to whisper, “What’s happening?” 

“You’ve never seen skating live before?” Louis asks quietly, eyes glued to the figures finding their opening positions like statues returning to their proper places in a museum as day breaks. 

He feels more than sees Harry tentatively shrug his shoulders, trying to play it off. A pointed smirk winds up on Louis' lips. This is gonna be good. 

“Just watch,” he says condescendingly, paired with a teasing pat to his knee for good measure. He pointedly ignores the vibration under his thigh. 

Music splits the silence and sparks the skaters into life. A few notes in and Louis nods in approval at the instrumental version of Queen’s _‘Who Wants to Live Forever.’_

“Whoa,” Harry whispers as they nail their first element, a triple rotation side-by-side in complete sync from lift off to touch down. 

Their movements are beautiful, graceful, utterly perfect. 

“Whoa!” Harry yells as the crowd around them breaks into cheers at the effortless twist lift. His eyebrows are high with shock. “He just threw her like nine feet in the air! While spinning! Like it was nothing!” 

“They do that a lot.” Louis raises his own eyebrows back. What did Harry think they did? Skate in circles while holding hands? “Keep watching.” He nudges him so they can both return focus to the couple just in time to catch the guy tossing his partner across the ice into a jump she lands with elegance. 

Harry stays captivated the entire skate, and then each one after. He audibly holds his breath every time a girl is tossed into the air, not relaxing until she lands it, like he’s worried. It’s adorable. Louis keeps sneaking glances at his green eyes wide with child-like wonder.

Periodically Harry pokes Louis and leans in unnecessarily close so that his curls nearly brush against Louis as he asks a question about the sport. Louis tries to simplify the answers best he can to keep them short and surface level so it doesn’t sound like a jargon bore. Harry keeps pushing though, looking at Louis with these avidly focused eyes like he’s genuinely eager to know the difference between a toe loop and lutz. 

“You did that at practice,” Harry says when a pair has completed axels, the easiest to recognize of the jumps because they’re the only ones entered forward facing. This also makes them the hardest, necessitating an extra half rotation to land. “You did it better.” 

Louis bites the inside of his cheek to stop the proud smile taking over his face, but it does nothing to stop the way his cheeks heats in a surely bright flush. The force of Harry’s attention and easy way of speaking his mind has Louis fiddling with the edges of his blanket and completely lost as to who’s already skated. He knows every stat attached to every blade coming out onto the ice today, has watched every performance by every skater here, and yet he can hardly recall their names at this point. 

When the next group of skaters comes on to warm up Louis lets Harry pass him to use the loo and adamantly does not stare at his crotch when he scoots by. Wearily Louis looks across the empty seat and meets Niall’s cheeky grin, completely caught. 

“Don’t.” 

“I’m just saying it’s been awhile, mate. We’re in a high stress environment, might do you some good.”

“And all those articles claiming sex before a performance is a bad idea?” 

“Clearly written by people needing to blame their failures on something other than their lack of skill.”

Louis doesn’t say anything because he knows Niall’s right about that one. He’d only said it because he’s been lacking anything else to say. Niall’s smug face makes it clear he knows he’s won. Not a minute too soon Harry comes back and plops down between them. 

“Got you a hot chocolate anyway, but if you spill it on your blanket you can’t tell your mom it was my fault.”

Louis takes the steaming paper cup with reverence. The warmth sinks into his hands quickly and when he takes a sip he nearly chokes in surprise.

“I meant that! No spilling!” Harry’s quick to say. 

Louis swallows. A dash of cinnamon has been sprinkled on top just the way he likes. He’s only had one hot chocolate, some almond milk thing on a bitterly cold morning walking the village earlier in the week. Harry must have seen him shake cinnamon into it right before he’d tapped on the lid as they left the cafe. 

He peaks at the lovely man beside him. It’s just a dash of cinnamon. Warmth spreads in his chest with every creamy sip.

“Thank you,” he murmurs into the lid. He’s keeping it close to warm his undoubtedly rosy nose. 

Harry smiles softly before returning his focus to the skaters as they line up for the next round. A few skate routines later and Harry’s learned enough to join in on a few of the technical comments Louis and Niall pass over him, earning them a few looks from their surrounding audience members but nothing Louis’ not already used to. 

“Do you move differently because you’re a solo skater?” 

“Hmm?” Louis’ face pinches in confusion.

There are obvious things, like the lifts and throws, Louis doesn’t do as a solo skater compared to a pair. Not much else is different though. The jumps, the footwork, the spins, they’re the same. 

“It’s like…” Louis looks at Harry straight on when he doesn’t finish. Harry’s frowning deep in thought, flicking his eyes at Louis and away again with uncertainty. “You move so differently. Like they’re all skating fine, but they’re so formulaic and perfect, like mannequins. When I watched you it was… It felt like you were saying something.” 

Louis tries to roll out of the scrutiny, unsettled that Harry’s been able to pick up on the artistry element he’s known for. Simon’s been trying to get him out of the habit for years now and focus strictly on the technical. Says Louis gets too emotional on ice to the point it compromises his points. A stupid waste, is what he says. 

Louis’ not sure why, but he shrugs it off like he still doesn’t know what Harry’s trying to say. “Routines are just that, an act. You put on a mask and skate around a little in the facade of whatever music you got. Some of us are just better at acting than others.”

Harry’s knee nudges against his softly. They’re both under the blanket now, Louis’ will had fallen short when Harry had actually started to shiver from the cold instead of excitement because he was wearing too thin a jacket for anywhere north of the border. 

“I don’t think that’s it,” Harry says. He doesn’t say what he does think it is and Louis grinds his molars in effort not to demand an explanation. 

Harry’s leg stays pressed against his for the rest of the competition. 

“See you lads tomorrow!” Niall calls when they’re wrapping up. The bastard hops down to the row of seats below and clears out before Louis has a chance to throttle him. 

“What’s tomorrow?” Harry asks. 

“The second program for the pairs.” 

“They do another one?” 

“Yeah, every skater does a short and a long program, or skate, or dance, or what have you.” Louis explains as they mush along with the exiting crowd one slow step at a time. A thrill shoots through him when Harry turns back and has to look up at him to meet his eyes. 

“I thought this was called the original?” 

“Get a different answer every time you ask someone. They can’t make up their minds about it, swear it’s almost as bad as the bloody judging system.” 

“So what do you call it, the second one?” 

“The free skate.” 

“Well, can I come to the free skate with you tomorrow?” Harry asks with a cheeky glint in his eye. 

If it were anyone else Louis would ask if they were taking the piss. He knew figure skating was boring to watch, had seen half filled crowds of the elderly fall asleep to the majority of his competitions. Here Harry was bright eyed and earnest. 

“Yeah,” he nods, once again a little lost with the full brunt of Harry’s focus. He glances away just to regain the ability to talk again. “I’d like that.” 

He face plants into his bed the next morning after training despite the sweat still soaking his body. Locker room floors were the last thing he wanted to put up with when there’s a perfectly good, and private, shower attached to his room. He just has to make it there first. His thigh vibrates before he’s made a move. With effort he flops onto his back and catches the call just in time. 

“Louis!” 

He cringes at his faded profile in the corner of the screen, angling the device as far away as possible from him to minimise the bags under his eyes. 

“Hello luvs.”

“What time is it there? We tried to get it right,” Lottie says with a twin on either side of her. 

“You’re alright love, I’ve just come in from the morning session. Headed to watch the pairs soon.”

“Oh good, we don’t actually have much time. Thought we’d get your machine, honest. Here’s mum!”

Before he can get another word in the screen blurs as it’s passed on. His mother comes into focus with the familiar kitchen in the background, no doubt she’s sitting at the table. 

“Hi darling.” A smile gently creases her face. 

“Hi mum.” The words have an instant effect once they fill his mouth. His shoulders relax when he hadn’t known they were tense, his body curling deeper into the smooth sheets beneath him. It’s not the same as a hug, but it’s the closest he’s going to get for a while. 

“You seem more settled than last call,” she comments and Louis’ glad he didn’t tell her why he’d been having a meltdown over the missing skates to avoid causing her own stress, but also wishes he could now talk to her about the conflicting way his belly flips every time he thinks of Harry. “You’re doing okay? When does Simon arrive?” 

“Two days.” He mutters, not overly enthusiastic about the prospect. 

“That’s still working okay? You’re doing all right on your own?”

“Yep.” He pops his ‘p’ plaintively. When has he ever been not okay on his own?

“Good. Oh hold on a sec, Dorris c’mere.” A wild tangle of curls appear in the bottom of the screen seconds before his mother is lifting the giggling toddler into her lap. “Say ‘proud of you’.” 

“Proud of you!” Dorris yells in a complete mimic of their mother. 

His mum tickles her sides and the both of them giggle on the six inch screen on his mobile. A bottomless well of longing opens in Louis’ chest. 

His mum stops the light fingered attack and kisses Dorris’ rosey cheeks. “Now give Lou big kisses and go brush your teeth.” 

“Mwah!” The pig-tailed toddler leans so close into the screen it goes dark for a moment before she’s placed on the ground and stumbling out of screen, to do as told or cause havoc Louis can’t tell. After a moment his mum’s focus returns to the camera. 

“Everyone’s excited for you Loubear, we’re counting down the days. Make sure you’re getting your rest!” 

“Yes mum,” he sighs fondly at her mothering antics. 

Before he knows it they’ve said their partings and the screen goes black. The silence makes the room around him grow a hundred metres wider in every direction. He curls a little tighter into the sheets and replays the whole call in detail behind his lids. He’s finally made it to the top of the mountain he’s spent his lifetime climbing, only to realise he is completely alone at the peak. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry

##### 

To say he may have underestimated what this whole couples skating thing was about would be, in itself, an understatement. There are people literally soaring above the ice at blink-and-miss speeds in nothing more than nylon and spandex. It’s still as electrifyingly terrifying to watch the second day around. If anything, the longer skate with bigger elements is even more so. 

“Holy shit,” Harry can’t help but whisper in awe for a countless time when a woman is lifted straight above her partner's head as he spins them both one way, then the other.

If Harry thought it took a particularly strong will to play hockey, it’s got nothing on what these people are doing. Harry may as well be swaddled in clouds for all the gear that protects him on ice compared to the sheer paneled costumes of these utter madmen and women. Harry’s feet also stay quite purposefully planted on the ice at all times. 

“Have you ever been lifted?” 

Louis nose wrinkles in an adorable likeness to a mouse. “Not of my own choosing.”

“How’s that?”

“I lost a bet.” 

Harry snorts at the mental image of Louis being lifted and twirled with his now familiar scowl comes to mind. As quick as it came the humour leaves, another image freezing Harry with the shock of his own mind. Himself lifting Louis, at first on ice, but then maybe… maybe off ice too. He smothers the abrupt choke at the tail end of his laughter with a hand toying with his bottom lip. It doesn’t help because now all Harry can think of is Louis’ tongue imitating his own fingers. Louis seems like he’d be a biter. 

“Seems like fun.” He says just to cut off his own thoughts. 

He’s both upset Niall had dipped out today at the last minute, so a sour faced Louis had relayed when they met, and glad he doesn’t have to deal with telling looks and nudges. Niall’s great, if just as obvious as Liam. 

The crowd around them erupts into cheers as the skaters on ice do something particularly amazing Harry completely misses. He lets the action on ice pull his attention, switching his focus between each partner, the way their skates move in synchronic detail, the speed in which they go from one end of the rink to the other. 

He asks Louis about the lifts and spins he quickly notices every couple is doing. Curled up in a similar manner as on the plane, kicked off shoes and toes tucked under his bum, Louis explains about the judged elements with a spark of passion in his eye that keeps Harry captivated even when completely lost in the jargon of Louis’ explanations. It’s possible he leans in more than the low volume of the polite crowd strictly necessitates. 

“What you do? There’s no way I could do any of it without eating shit two seconds on ice cause of the fucking toe-pick.” 

“Oi, that’s not the proper truth of it,” Louis counters with a more serious tone than Harry had been intending to spark. “You forget I’ve seen you in action, Mr. Four Goal Game. Comparison will kill you. You’ve got just as much real talent as any of us prancing around out there.”

Harry meets the bright determination in Louis’ eyes. There’s no wavering, no joke in it, just the full strength of his belief in what he’s saying. Harry accepts it with a burst of heat in the tightly wound coil of his belly. He’s proud and light headed with the praise from someone like Louis, someone Harry is certain doesn’t dole out compliments without conviction. 

Side by side, they spend the entire afternoon watching the competition. Each glancing press of Louis’ knee, his shoulder, his hand along Harry’s side glows with warmth long after the touch is gone. He leans into it selfishly, watching closely to make sure Louis doesn’t grow uncomfortable or pull away, but if anything he presses into it. Halfway through the competition their sides are solidly glued together in a comfortable cuddle. 

Louis is quick to tear apart a few of the routines for what he considers sloppiness that Harry would be hard pressed to see without a magnifying glass and a high speed camera. They share fist full of giggles over some of the more… unique costume choices. 

“Please tell me you also have a flower tutu.” 

“I’d have to check in with my three year old sister, might be a tad tight.” 

There’s something there. Something in the way Louis’ face softens around his eyes and his brow relaxes when he mentions his family. Harry’s noticed it before and he wants to dig into it now. Ask about every sibling he has, about his parents, but he doesn’t want to walk a minefield. He chooses a route with less chance of implosion. 

“What does your second costume look like?”

A light blush creeps over Louis’ cheeks when he doesn’t immediately respond. He turns from Harry’s face to look out over the crowd. 

“It’s blue.” He shrugs. 

Harry is once again left wanting to dig more. He wonders if it is something close to one someone else has worn and Harry’s unknowingly dragged it. He can’t see Louis in anything particularly outrageous, but he’s also only known Louis for a week and counting so what does he know? 

He feels like he knows a lot. 

“Well with that riveting description I’ll have to come see it with my own two eyes.”

Louis doesn’t meet the look Harry sends him, instead fiddling with his cuffs. 

“Okay,” He murmurs.

That won’t do. Harry nudges him with an elbow.

Louis tugs his sleeves entirely over his hands but slants his head cockily looking like the priss Harry met on the plane. “You just want to see men in tight pants.“ 

Harry gives a little shake of his head, not letting Louis hide behind his bravado facade. “It’s an honour to watch you skate, but I won’t come if you don’t want me to.”

“I want you to,” Louis cuts in before that last word has left Harry’s mouth. 

They share a moment of eye contact as Louis’ lips press into a thin embarrassed smile and Harry dares to stroke a finger along Louis’ cotton covered thigh. 

“I’ll be there. I promise.” 

Their gentle smile is interrupted by a loud cheer erupting around them. They break out of the moment and refocus on the couple on ice.

Both of them stand up to cheer for the very first couple Harry had ever seen skating as they take their place on top of the centre podium, tears on their wide smiling cheeks and heavy gold around their necks. 

Louis tells him their story as they walk out of the arena, explaining their eighteen year commitment to a sport that left the romantic couple living in separate dorm rooms and pushing off their marriage until they could come back after injury. 

“They were set to win the last Olympics, everyone thought they’d retire then with the full set of medals from every major competition.” 

“What happened?” 

Louis toes the stones littered around the parking lot pavement. “Injury. His leg or something. They had just enough time to squeeze out a routine and claim a bronze practically by default. It wasn’t what they deserved, so they came back for it.” 

“Four years just for the gold?” The words slip out before Harry can reconsider. 

“It’s not about the medal hanging on your neck.” Louis turns fiercely on him, eyes ablaze. “It’s- it’s everything that went into it. It’s the world paying you back for everything you went through to get it.” 

Harry’s out of his depth on this one. He’s been with the National Team for less than six months, and though it’s been a draining and thorough ball busting time, it’s got nothing on the way Louis clearly sees these games as validation for his existence. It pulls a string in Harry’s chest. There are moments when outside pressure and looming consequences take over on the ice, sure, but they rarely last past the first five minutes of a game. Then it’s Harry, the ice, and the puck. 

Looking at Louis he wonders if he still feels that anymore. If he can remember the first time he felt free on ice, if he enjoys the act of lacing up, if he ever takes a breath to savour the successes without immediately dissecting the mistakes. Harry remembers the grimace on Louis’ face when he’d practised jump after perfect jump on the padded gym mats. The severe look of concentration when he’d stepped onto ice as Harry hid in the bleachers. It’s all this that urges Harry to ignore the fire in Louis’ eyes and step forward to wrap him in a hug. 

Louis locks up at his touch. Harry’s heart double-times in fear. Oh fuck. He’s entirely ruined everything hasn’t he, what was he _thinking?_

He barely lifts his arms to step away when Louis melts. Tight arms cling to Harry’s waist through the layers of jackets while he gets a faceful of Louis’ soft hair as the boy presses his face into Harry’s shoulder. He smells like warmth. Every sharp edge Harry witnessed seconds ago has morphed into soft round curves begging to be held and Harry wishes he could make this moment indefinite to do so. 

Harry’s sure his cheeks are just as rosy as Louis’ when they unanimously pull back. 

“You're golden,” Harry says in a subdued level to fit the bashful tone that’s swallowed them. He hunts down Louis’ eyes to make sure he’s listening. “You’re worth more than any medal.” 

Louis’ face turns an even brighter shade of pink, an unstable smile pulling against his attempts to control it. He’s fucking precious and Harry can’t help it. He’s moving without thinking and ducking to meet Louis’ lips in a warm brush. 

It’s quick, a pleasant little show of warm affection, but it leaves Harry shaking with nerves the second it ends. Did he actually fuck it up this time? He thinks he’s read it right, but _still._

His tummy flip flops as he waits for Louis’ shock to morph into an actual emotion. When the little smile of Louis’ returns, relief swirls through Harry like he’s floating away with it. A laugh leaves him, which sparks an answering giggle from Louis so delightful Harry can do nothing more than echo it and soon they’re curling into each other laughing. 

Louis presses his lips together into a thin line of amusement and Harry hangs on his words before he’s even said something. 

“I should go.” Louis fiddles with the ends of his sleeves and he wavers on his feet. They part with no less than three glances back at each other. 

Harry doesn’t know how the ball of anxiety and snark that is Louis Tomlinson turned into this bashful little creature. He’s just as enamoured by this version of him, if not more so. 

Harry’s still thinking about the kiss as he works the straps on shin pads tighter with the satisfying screech of velcro. He yanks his socks high over the gear and stands, habitually adjusting his jock after sitting. The locker room is a mess of strewn clothing and gear waiting to be strapped onto the rowdy half-dressed men. A decent warm up has left Harry’s skin damp with a thin layer of sweat that will only drench him further the second he steps onto ice. He pays it no mind as he stands and turns to face his locker, his smile growing closer to permanent with every second. 

A towel slaps at his back. 

“The fuck were you all day?” Liam throws himself onto the bench beside Harry.

Harry shrugs, fussing with his jersey in an attempt to find the neck hole. “Out and about, as the locals say.” 

Liam snorts. “Right. Well did wherever you go help ease your head outta your ass?” 

“Popped right out.” 

Liam’s eyeing him when Harry gets his head through the jersey. Maybe he can see how Harry’s literally glowing after a full day spent with Louis because he tilts his head like a puppy dog in confusion. Unfortunately Liam goes back to working his own gear and Harry’s conflicted about wanting to tell him everything and not wanting to sound like a teenage boy writing in his diary. 

It’s just. The hug hadn’t been like a hug he’d share with Liam or Mitch. It had been a sign of trust. Louis was trusting him, of all people. It was sweet relief. Coupled with the kiss Harry was flying. 

“Yeah, looks like. Least you’re wearing the right skates this time.” 

Harry knocks Liam shoulder to shoulder after he’s reclaimed his seat on the bench. 

“You’re one to talk, I can’t believe you and Niall were running around the same as me and Louis.” 

“You’d only know that if you were hanging around that Louis more.” 

“Louis Tomlinson? The skating kid?” 

Harry whips his head up as Mitch plops down on the opposite side of Harry. Where Harry’s fully decked out in gear Mitch is fresh from a rinse in the shower after warm up. Dude’s got an issue about being sweaty, yet for some ever-unknowable reason still decided to become a hockey player. 

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, although considering he’s fairly sure Louis is a year or two older than him he wouldn’t consider him a kid, but he can see why Mitch would at the ripe age of twenty six. 

“Been hearing things about ‘im. Super impressive what he’s done, you think?” 

“What’s that?” 

“Back here after his head injury. Spilled his brains all over the ice at the last Olympics apparently. It’s on youtube.” 

“Really?” Liam tugs out his phone from his gym bag at his feet. 

Every drop of Harry’s blood runs down like it’s being sucked into the floor drain. 

“Don’t.” He holds up a shaky hand to halt Liam’s fingers. “Not near me, I don’t-” 

“Styles!” A few heads turn to Coach standing in the doorway. 

Harry blinks away the visceral image of Louis laying curled into a ball when he’d been hit at practice. It’s adamant, stained on his lids every time he blinks, only now every flash of red in the corner of his eye becoming a taunt of the crimson blood Harry’s imagination has spilled on slashed up ice. 

Coach stands planted with feet shoulder distance apart and arms crossed in the hall, a solid mass of a man. 

“You can let your line know you’re third string tonight.” 

“What?” Harry's hand tightens on the door frame he’s barely exited.

“Let me break it down for you. You and wingers Payne and Rowland will be in third thanks to your outstanding performance.” 

The demotion is decimating. If Harry’s head was spinning before, it’s a merry-go-round now. 

“Coach-”

Coach leans in with a menacing severity and steel in his eyes.

“This is the quarter-finals, Styles. No time to be tripping over your laces. Show me why the board chose a kid to be on a man’s team.” 

He marches away before Harry has a word to say. He fists a clump of curls on his head, wanting to yank it straight from the roots with frustration. Other players rinkside consider him too old to be the new promising good luck charm so many teams are built around, but every man that doesn’t step an inch onto the ice sees him as a baby in skate boots. Coaches, managers, the boards. They’re all alike.

Harry just wants to play the game. He wants to prove touching the Stanley Cup during his freshman year in the NHL wasn’t a fluke, but a result of skill. He can hardly do that from third string. 

He’s forced to watch from the side of the rink as the puck is dropped. Mitch and Liam sit beside him just as anxious, chewing mouth guards and bouncing knees. Penalties start instantly. Icing, hooking, and a surprising cross-check. The minutes of power-play add up in two minute increments, the teams alternating the advantage as Harry watches the rapidfire clock tick away the allotted twenty minutes of the first period. 

“Fucking massacre,” Harry mutters as a team mate eats it into the boards and stands holding his ribs. 

Liam’s knee nudges his. “Not that I’m particularly jealous, but you wanna explain to me why it’s not us out there?” 

Harry casts his gaze into the crowd. If Louis’ out here tonight he’d have no way of knowing. “Coach thinks I’ve lost focus.”

“You have.” This from Mitch on the other side of him. 

A swoop of pain loops through Harry at the blunt confirmation. Coach’s words hit hard because they felt true, but having his friend say so is a sucker punch.

Mitch soothes the burn of it with a pat to Harry’s knee and shrugs it off. 

Finally, _finally,_ Coach calls a second line change and Harry’s hopping over the boards faster than he can take a full breath, tearing after the puck in powerful strides. 

The pair of defencemen greet him with an easy pass of the puck as Harry arrives to play it forward, bouncing it between Liam and Mitch in well practised moves he barely has to think about. Just as he crosses the blue line someone’s stick slaps the ice and Harry’s focus is broken by the vivid image of Louis’ skull hitting the ice with a similar smack. It’s gone as fast as it came, but the puck is already in the embrace of an opponent's stick. 

Harry bites hard into the firm hold of his mouth guard and charges after it. His blades cut into the ice in time with his thundering heart beat. He needs to make a mark on this game, needs to demonstrate why his line has earned the right to be first string for months without substitution. 

The crowd becomes a buzz of static in the background. Harry’s hands curl around the stick like an extension of his limbs, the confines of his helmet keeping in the heat of his curls and causing sweat to roll down the side of his face in such a familiar feeling he wouldn’t notice if not for the way it periodically catches on his eyelashes. He barks out at Mitch and Liam in a deep demanding voice he only uses on ice as they execute play after play, their Swiss opponents getting underfoot nearly every time. The frustration of it mounts.

“Didn’t know Americans allowed pussy to play. You been locked in a tower, Rapunzel? That why you’re so shit with a stick?” 

Harry’s never cross-checked anyone before, but the way this game is going he’s starting to see the appeal of shoving the players of the other team when they’re making underhanded moves sly enough for the refs to miss. Liam’s restraint fails him a minute from the first whistle and Harry wants to join in when he sees the immediate way his friend's gloves drop. He looks away when someone's nose starts staining the ice red. 

They move into the third period the same way they ended the first. Their second fifteen minute intermission was spent being reamed out by Coach, and Harry’s only silver lining to that is while he had his own moment of being directly chewed on, so had over half of the team. The score board still rings clear zeros as Harry takes the bench and watches the two teams collide in a battle for domination. 

There are five minutes left in the game when Coach puts them in. Liam’s been pulled from the game for his earlier antics and while Harry doesn’t mind his new right winger, he’s not Liam Payne. 

A lucky spin off of the post gets knocked in from Mitch and the entire American team takes a collective breath. All they need to do is last five minutes to avoid over-time. 

Harry crouches for face-off. Time fragments into slowed down seconds as he holds a staredown with the stained ice circle where the puck will appear. He can’t leave this game without making a mark. He can’t face Coach. Can’t face Liam. Can’t face himself in the mirror.

His stick crashes down at the first sign of movement and it’s his, the puck is in his possession and he’s flying, charging into a break away before the other eleven players on ice can blink. He passes to Mitch without looking, swipes past opposing defencemen with a fakeout, receives the puck on the other side, finds that sweet spot angle that feels like home. Shoots. 

Scores. 

The heavy horn of a goal fills the stadium. His team welcomes him with weary pats on the back. There is little embrace for returning to a place you never should have left. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis

Organizing his training sessions around the American Men’s hockey games is no longer something Louis can pretend he doesn’t do when it’s just himself going to the game on the twenty fourth, just two days short of his own competing date. 

He calculates the exact time he needs to leave to be in the stadium seats five minutes to puck drop. Not having Niall chugging a pint next to him makes the whole experience feel off balanced, like he’s missing a key element to the routine now, but he manages to bunker down into his down-filled anorak and focus on what’s happening on ice. 

Immediately he counts and recounts the players on ice. None of them are Harry. It takes scouring the identical jerseys lined along the bench a few times to recognize him from so far away. He’s definitely pouting. 

He tilts his head to someone beside him that could be Liam, but Louis’ only met the guy a handful of times and without the numbers he can’t tell for sure. They talk for a bit. Harry takes off his helmet and runs a hand through tangled curls he’s left free for the game before putting it back on. He doesn’t do much of anything after that. 

At the sudden movement of Harry catapulting over the boards like a loose cannon Louis realises he’s done nothing but stare at Harry the entire game so far, only able to locate the puck because Harry is like a heat-seeking missile as he dives into the throng of players. 

Louis nearly bites his tongue off a number of times as the game plays out more like two groups of bullies pushing each other around a playground. Harry’s not completely innocent when it comes to little digs, though what Louis catches from his seat so far away he knows is only a fraction of what’s being doled out, and the way the refs keep blowing the whistle it’s clear no one on ice is particularly angelic. 

By the end of it Louis’ so tightly wound up he hollers as loud as the rest of the crowd when the first goal tips into the net. It must kick a fire under Harry’s arse because as soon as the puck touches the ice again he’s knocking the puck into the net in such a beautifully orchestrated set up it’s like he’s simply been waiting for the perfect time to do so. 

Louis’ glad for him and he makes sure to tell him so when Harry slumps into the commons later that night. Louis was maybe using Niall and catching up over the women’s short program results as an excuse to linger near the fireplace. 

“Shoulda been there lad, Sel completely smashed Assada’s record to bits.”

Louis hums, quick to shift his focus from Niall beside him on the sofa to Harry’s deflated form becoming one with the armchair. He taps Harry’s leg in a way he hopes isn’t too forward. Then tells himself that’s crazy because they practically cuddled as much as arena seats would allow for two days straight and then kissed to top it off. 

Harry lifts his head enough to see him. 

“Saw the game tonight.”

Harry’s face scrunches in distaste and he groans. “Sorry you did. Nothing great about it.”

“You were there, good enough for me.” 

Louis looks away from Harry as quickly as the words drop from his mouth, only to look straight at Niall’s raised eyebrows and okay. Okay. So he really did just say that. 

Harry doesn’t seem to realise Louis’ minor meltdown about it because he just rolls his head back and sighs in disagreement. His limbs are sprawled and his chin dusted in enough stubble to be noticeable. Where’d the energetic Harry with warm smiles and shiny eyes go?

Louis kind of wants to pester him with annoyance until the Harry he’s grown used to seeing returns, but he also kinda wants to wrap him in a blanket and run his hands through his curls to wait it out. Neither is a smart option. 

“Early morning again. See you lads later,” Louis mumbles as he stands. It’s not even a lie. Tomorrow is his second and last on ice practice session before he competes. Every second on that practice ice has the increased chance of altering his final performance.

Niall rolls his eyes and Harry doesn’t move, even when Louis hesitates to give him more time to. Maybe he’s just tired from the game, maybe he just doesn’t give a shit about what Louis does. 

So Louis once again draws the bath he was supposed to enjoy the night Niall so rudely interrupted him. This time it’ll be just a bath. The weird interaction has left him too unsettled to really want anything more exciting than a few minutes of shut-eye in hot water and the steam to relax the knot his neck and shoulder muscles have become. 

His toe dips into the water as an earth shattering scream erupts. Louis stumbles backwards and grips the wall for support, yanking the provided bathrobe as quickly as he can. It came from outside his room, possibly even a different hall altogether though he can’t be sure. The dance pairs are a floor below with Niall, while the solo lady competitors are a floor up. 

Louis’ not the only one peeking out into the hall. Everyone’s silent as they gaze around for the source only for a wave of violent sobbing to echo through the building. It’s clearly coming from the stairs, and when Louis looks over Niall’s dashing into Louis’ hallway while Hailee sprints behind him towards the next floor up. 

“What is it?” Louis asks. 

Niall shakes his head with hands on his hips. “Dunno, Hailee’s gone to see. Thought I should stay down in case it’s more of a women's thing, you know? Respect the privacy.”

Louis wants to say it’s the only time Niall’s ever respected anyone’s privacy, but it doesn’t fit the world ending shriek still ringing in his head. Whatever’s happened, it’s heaviness weighs the air around them all. They don’t have to wait long before a tear streaked Hailee comes down the stairs in solemn steps. She holds herself at the elbows in the only show of weakness Louis’ ever seen from her. 

“It’s Joanie. Her mum’s passed quite- quite suddenly.” Her hand flies to her mouth while they all listen to the echoes of sobbing continue from upstairs.

Niall leans in close, whispers something while rubbing her back that makes her nod. The two of them turn to leave, Niall sending a grim look over his shoulder at Louis in parting. 

Louis eases himself into his room with a quiet click of his door. Joanie had been sweet the brief times he’d seen her around the gym. A strong skater and a serious competitor for a medal. Or she had been. 

Louis sits on the edge of his bed, tugging awkwardly at his robe when it’s caught under him. Only his toes brush the ground as his legs hang limply. He can’t remember the last words he said to his mum. He knows it was over the video call before watching the pairs compete, and Christ that was already a few days ago now, how had he gone so long without calling them? Why wasn’t he calling them everyday? 

It’s not a real question because he knows the answer, he just wishes it were different, was some great mystery. His family are the ones to reach out, who take the time and put in the effort to connect with him, even if it’s for something short like last time when they talked so quickly he doesn’t even know if he said goodbye. He must have. He can’t be sure. 

It’s too late on this side of the world for him to call, logistically knows all he’ll achieve is interrupting what little sleep his mum gets as it is if he picks up the phone. But he can’t remember if he said goodbye. 

The scratch of his toe pick feels less like a catch on ice and more like he’s digging the sawed steel edges deep into his own spine. On ice everyone goes into their heads with narrow focus, but the heavy concern from Zayn and mixed scepticism of the rest of the skaters are pulling Louis' already shot focus. 

He takes two strokes towards the centre, rolls out his shoulders, switches into crossovers for another set up. He gains momentum around one end of the rink, turns backwards as he crosses centre, takes a breath. Jumps. 

His knee goes wide as he pops the jump, bailing out of it as soon as it starts. His toe pick drags against the scarred ice, adding another one of many chunks he’s gouged out of it. His hands go to his hips as he keeps his head down and strokes unenthusiastically around the end of the rink, finishing the figure eight. 

In another rink, in an arena filled to the brim, Joanie is on the ice. Her mother died less than twenty four hours ago and she’s in skintight sequins. 

Louis’ eyes scan the vastly empty blue chairs watching him. 

He can remember his mum sitting in the local rink, hot thermos of tea clasped tightly in her mitten swathed hands as Louis wobbled towards the boards, completely unable to stop himself. She was there for every lesson back then. Always welcomed him with a hug as he tumbled into her unquestioned embrace. 

He doesn’t have a habit of looking at the crowd anymore, there’s no one to look for in the blur of faces across the globe. Vienna, Paris, Tokyo, Louis has been to more countries for competitions than he has siblings. Always one foot out the door to leave them behind. 

In three quick strides his eyes are back on the ice and he’s entering another set up.

Niall’s lacing up as Louis comes off and sits in a miserable pile on the bench. 

“How’d it go then?”

He asks only to distract himself from what just happened, and not due to any real interest in the women’s hockey game Niall had made noise about. 

“Americans lost, hope the boys aren’t too down about it.” 

Hopefully Harry isn’t too upset over that, something about his genuine range of emotion makes Louis think he’d be easily impacted by stuff like that. Not that Louis cares. Or can care. He has his own bullshit to worry about right now. 

He hums instead of answering, trying to avoid more discussion of American Hockey players. Especially when said hockey players haven’t messaged him all day. Like a teenager, Louis’ been clinging to his phone all morning waiting for the near ritual text from Harry, something upbeat with a smiley face to cap it off. Harry’s probably busy or got other things on his mind. It doesn’t mean anything that he hasn’t texted today. No matter how many times Louis thinks this he can’t cut down the sour twist curdling his guts. 

There’s not a single person he’s talked to regularly besides his coach. He doesn’t know the twins favourite colours or the name of Lottie’s friends. The closest friends he has himself are his biggest rival coincidentally his ex, and someone he ghosted for four years. To think he could be in any sort of romantic relationship is laughable, that he could maintain it for any length of time is inconceivable. 

Harry’s blindsided by the excitement of the Olympics and the shininess of getting to know someone. Undoubtedly the shine will wear off. He'll soon realize Louis is a hollow machine with one set goal, and once he completes it he’ll be set in a corner to rust. 

Stepping back was the right thing to do. He had experience disappearing, he could do it now. Better to do it than to suffocate under the crush of every assumption about himself he’s made proven right when Harry walks away. 

After Niall’s taken to the ice Louis walks out into the crisp winter parking lot. The wind catches him off guard and instantly freezes the sweat lingering on his skin. He burrows deep into his jacket but there’s no escape from it as he trudges along. An insistent vibration from his bag makes him scowl. He wants to ignore it. Wants to tuck his head down and keep moving forward. That’s not an option. 

His bag falls with little grace to the ground and he bends at the waist to follow, digging into it with quick jerks of his fingers gone numb from the cold. The phone is lit up with a single letter in place of a contact name or number. S. 

“Yeah.” He answers, still hunched over his open bag. 

“Heard about your piss poor display. All the work I’ve put into you and this is what you have to show for it? You’re better than that, Louis. I made you better than that.” 

“It’s mental, not physical. I’ll work through it.” 

“I didn’t ask for excuses, there isn’t one large enough to explain the fucking embarrasment of today.” 

After receiving finely detailed notes on his failures, Louis hangs up. By the time the line clicks Louis’ crouched on his heels beside his bag. There’s no hope of standing. Gravity tugs him to the ground and he lands on his backside with a dull thud. His phone is still in his hand. It rings twice before the line connects. 

“Louis? What is it?” 

He bites at his fist. He hasn’t spoken to his mum in two days and yet she’s not expecting to hear from him so soon. Obviously something must be wrong. He must want something. Need something. Have something important to say. Never just a random chat. 

He swipes the mess of tears working their way down his cheeks. 

“Making sure you got the times right. Two o’clock here, it’ll be… “

“Ten o’clock love, we know. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” 

“Okay, good. That’s… I love you.” 

“I love you too, darling.” 

“Okay. Goodbye.” 

“Cheers Lou.” 

He hangs up before he can say it. The one thing running through his mind since the second she was on the line. 

_I want to go home._

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry

He sleeps well past his normal rising time on the twenty fifth. With a game played the day before and the semi-final tomorrow, Coach wants them well rested before heading into practice today. The sun is mid sky as he drags himself from the luxurious nest of pillows and blankets just a hint too warm to make him sweat in the night. Liam’s still snoring away in the opposite bed and although Harry had a full shower last night after the game, he’s not opposed to indulging in another with the way he’s pleasantly greeted the day at half-mast. 

His grip is tight and ruthless on himself, no less pleasurable for the quickness of it all. The hot water is near too much when he strokes down to reveal the sensitive head. He keeps going regardless, chasing the pleasure-pain over the edge with a few hitches in his breath and a subtle groan he can’t keep in on the last few tugs as he rides it out. Everything rinses down the drain and he’s even managed to keep his hair dry. Today just might shape up to be better than yesterday.

Liam’s still dead to the world and Harry lets him sleep, mentally ticking a box on the ‘things I’ve done for you’ list that he’ll never collect on but may use as persuasion tactic in the near future. 

His phone stays silent despite the text he sent to Louis. Harry taps it against his palm a few times with jittery energy. This is silly. But. Louis has replied immediately every day Harry’s texted him so far. Harry admits he’d been a bit short with him last night after such a sore game, but still.

It’s probably nothing, there’s a lot going for both of them right now, an hour or so of silence shouldn’t make him feel squirmy. Louis has practice skate today if he’s got his dates right, but Harry hadn’t planned to go because he didn’t want to distract Louis during such an important block of time. He’d felt certain they’d make plans for after, but now this silence has left him idle for the entire day. He taps a button to light up the screen again, the empty inbox staring him down. 

He locks the phone quickly and shoves it into his back pocket. Enough of that. The stripping down from Coach yesterday and the trash game obviously has him feeling a little too raw and sensitive. What he needs is to loosen up and thicken his skin. Liam’s useless for at least a few more hours so Harry shrugs into tight jeans and a low cut shirt that shows off every hour he’s spent in the gym or on ice and leaves without even attempting to be quiet. Liam could sleep through a stampede. 

Mitch and Sarah are easy to spot in the common when Harry walks in. They’re nestled in a corner by the walls of windows overlooking the snow sprinkled village around them. He stops before they notice him and takes the moment to watch Mitch’s thumb stroke Sarah’s shoulder where he’s got his arm wrapped around her. The soft curve of her smile as she listens to him speak into her hair. Their love is a glowing aura, the softness of which send spikes of longing through Harry’s tender tummy. 

Two steps towards them and Sarah catches his eye. Her shoulders shift to open her arms wide and he takes the invitation to slump on the bench and curl into them, both of their legs surrounding his sides as his head rests on Sarah’s chest. Her hand idly plays with his hair in a familiar way that soothes the discomfort he’d felt, but not quite enough to make it completely disappear. 

“Got plans for the day, Haz? Gonna see the cute little skater of yours?” 

Harry sighs and pouts and shakes his head in a show of dramatic grumpiness because he can get away with it. Mitch chuckles and Sarah pats his head. 

“We get you all to ourselves then?”

Harry smiles up at her, hoping to look endearing. It must work because her fingers still play with his hair and Mitch’s smile is fond past her shoulder.

“Maybe I’m just trynna get on the good side of someone who’s hours away from winning Olympic Gold.” 

Sarah blows a raspberry at him. “You say that like you won’t be weighed down by a medal soon enough.” 

Harry rolls his eyes. “All right, so what’s a bunch of soon-to-be medal holders gonna do then?” 

“I’ve got this idea.” Mitch says. 

Harry’s heart jumps. Mitch always has the best ideas. 

It is the best idea. 

There’s a lake a snowshoe away from the village. Mitch pulls down his floppy eared hat and Sarah hides half her face in a scarf and Harry keeps his hands snug in oversized mitts as they trek over untouched paths still layered in glittering fluffy snow. When they arrive the lake is a breathtaking sight of solidified ice across the entire thing. There are a few old scars in it from previous use yet nothing recent on the top layer.

“Concierge says the locals come out here to get away from the fuss in town,” Mitch explains as they lace up.

They’ve brought their sticks over their shoulders and a puck emerges from Mitch’s pocket. Within seconds the three of them are tangled in an easy game without rules or reason, all of them teaming up or flipping into offensive on a dime. The ice is rough underfoot and the air is bitterly cold, but it’s soon filled with the sound of their breathless jokes and unbridled joy. Harry’s lungs bubble with giddy laughter. 

As the sweat really starts to build under their layers and their passes begin to get sloppy because they're laughing too hard to concentrate they slow down to take in the wonder of being where they are. The blue sky overhead makes the lake feel like the bottom of a fish bowl with mountains of snow covered pines on every side. Mitch and Sarah have gravitated towards each other as they rest against their sticks. Harry should bring Louis here one day. 

The thought opens up a vast hole in Harry’s mind. In it are every place Harry wants to bring Louis, the rink he learned to skate on, the corner where he skinned his knee playing street hockey, the school he went to, his mother's house with the pool in the backyard, the convenience store with the specific kind of off brand candy he favours. 

The air in his lungs solidifies into heavy ice. 

He won’t ever get to show Louis those places, because Louis lives across a whole fucking ocean. 

The realisation makes Harry lose his grip and fumble his stick, only just saving it from clattering to the ice. He’s known in the vague way that Louis has an obvious accent making half his words unrecognizable and sometimes he squints at Harry’s word choices like he’s translating them and he’s got a fondness for blunt observations. Somehow Harry’d never put it together that Louis literally lives in England, and whatever they’re doing here will disappear as soon as they both fly home. 

Even if Louis were miraculously living in the same city as Harry, if everything goes right in the next few days Harry will be playing hockey for an entire decade before chances of retirement. That’s years of possibly being traded and uprooted on the whims of team managers, and several months of every year spent on the road playing away games in different parts of the country. Louis’ probably going home to raise a family of his own little skating stars in matching knit sweaters and shining blue eyes. Harry doesn’t have a fat fucking chance of ever fitting into that equation. 

“You good to go, H?” Sarah asks as she slides next him with a friendly shoulder bump. 

He swallows thickly. “Yeah. Had enough, I think.” 

They pack up in no time. Harry yanks his first skate off only to lose his balance and step his socked foot into several feet of snow. With a grimace he brushes as much of it off before it starts to melt. He’s not quick enough, every step forward in the snowshoes strapped to his boots he feels the unpleasant stick of his wet sock.

Sarah’s quick to dash off to warm up with her team with a kiss to Mitch and hug for Harry. Mitch is gracious enough to go return their rented snowshoes and put the gear back where it belongs. 

It takes a few long minutes sitting by the fire to warm up his foot and phone battery enough for both to function properly. Liam’s been graceful enough to inform Harry he’s alive and awake, unlike someone Harry’s miserably failing not thinking about. 

It’s with this terrible combination of enabling best friend and self-pitying thoughts that Harry finds himself in a situation entirely of his own making. 

“Oh shut up! Liam, you seeing this?” 

Liam looks over with a raised eyebrow. 

“What a fucking disgrace to the sport. How can they legally get away with calling shit like that?” 

“Dunno bro.” 

Harry huffs and pushes his long hair back from his face before crossing his arms to sit back in the small plastic stadium chair. He glowers at the offending refs on ice. Bribe taking mongrels in stripes. Harry grabs his beer from the floor and doesn’t mind as it sloshes over the rim before it reaches his lips. He is possibly drunk, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less right so he says his mind to make sure everyone else is just as aware. 

The Canadian women are just as brutal as their male counterparts and they are swiftly kicking the American teams ass. Sarah’s doing her part at home in the semi-circle of the crease attempting to block the net, but there’s only so much a goalie can do without the proper support of defencemen or you know, fair fucking referees. 

“Bullshit!” Harry belows as a penalty gets added to the clock for an American player. 

“Hey man, quiet down a bit,” says some gruff stranger.

“How can I be quiet at such injustice? Are you even watching the game?” 

“Dude,” Liam warns with a tug to Harry's shirt. 

“I’m trying to, but some asshole keeps yelling over the play.” The stranger stands.

So. 

_So_ ten minutes later there might possibly be a tear in Harry’s lip from the punch he took after he gave a little disgusted shove of his own to get the guy to stop breathing spicy-wing scented breath in his face. Nothing crazy, but. Well. There are a lot of people in that stadium. A lot of cameras. 

“You’re on thin fucking ice, Styles. If we weren’t in the most pivotal moment of these games you can bet your ass you’d be stripped of your line. You’re not some wild child, second coming of Jesus. You are replaceable.”

Coach jabs a finger in Harry’s face. 

“The entire NHL is affected by the impact of your actions. Every professional hockey player's reputation has been smeared by this. Did you even think how it would look for the women's team? Their whole game has been written out to make room for this fucking spectacle you’ve put on.” 

Harry knows. He’s already dreading how to face the disappointed look from Sarah, let alone making a formal apology to the entire women's team for the disrespect. 

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you here, but you’re going to have quite a few surprises when this is all over and you’re sat on your ass back home because no one wanted to sign the kid with the attitude problem.” Coach paces with his hands on his hips in the stern air of disappointment Harry’s never experienced from anyone else but his father. He narrows his eyes at Harry. “I expect you on ice in twenty.” 

Harry jumps at the command. It’s late, so late the whole stadium is shut down to half-lights and janitors have locked up, but none of that matters. It takes him fifteen minutes minimum to suit up and he doesn’t even have his gear out. His headache is already starting to kick in from dehydration but he doesn’t have time to track down his water bottle when he’s fumbling with his phone to call the gear manager for the general locker code. 

He arrives panting on ice with twenty seconds to spare, Coach is sure enough to inform him. 

The whistle blows. 

Time stops having meaning when Harry’s drenched in sweat and leaning heavily on his stick in front of his coach, the two of them the only living souls in the rink. 

“Again.” 

Harry’s teeth clamp tightly on his mouth guard as his quads burn in hellfire with every push forward he takes from blue line to blue line before his blades spray shaved ice on his immediate stop in front of his Coach. His lungs swell. Deflate. His eyes blink once. Twice. Sticking together in the sweat rolling uncomfortably beneath his layers of heavy padding. 

“Again.” 

He fists his stick and pushes forward with a grunt. 

Coach holds a hand to stop him when he returns, his body already leaning forward in preparation for the next suicide. The sight of it nearly brings tears to his eyes as his knees wobble with exhaustion. 

“You get the pleasure of helping the gear manager before warm up tomorrow as a start. You step one hair out of line and fuck the game, you’re pulled. You hear me?” 

Gear managers start prep two hours early, which means mid afternoon. Which means Harry has to show up during the middle of the first men's figure skating competition. He promised, but he can’t be in two places at once and there’s only one thing he can say right now to a question that’s not a question.

“Yes Coach.” 

“Now get your lousy face out of my sight.” 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis

“From London, England, Louis Tomlinson skating to _Amor Congelado._ ” The announcer's voice echoes around the arena. 

Four powerful strides on the ice send Louis away from a cross armed Simon to the centre of the rink. His eyes rake over the crowd without his permission, searching for a face he’s already confirmed isn’t there. He takes a breath and digs his pick hard into the ice for his starting position, floating his arms up and gracefully bringing them into place. 

The crowd goes silent and the world hangs motionless.

The piano chord strikes and he twists into action. 

His knees bend deep to give his every stride power as he crosses the ice in a dynamic step sequence matching the dramatic Latin music. His choreography is sharp and filled with flare, a gritty tango for one. 

He enters a setup for his first jump of the routine, the deciding factor of how this skate is truly going to go. He glides backwards on one foot and takes a deep breath. In this moment his mind is empty of every thought, every emotion. It’s just the ice, his blades, and his heartbeat. 

Two minutes and forty seconds after it started the music stops in a dramatic jolt that locks Louis out of his spin and into his finishing pose. 

You could fit a full metre stick between him and Simon on the 'Kiss & Cry' bench as the scores come up. Louis doesn’t need to look at them or his coach to know what they’ll say. He skated fine. 

Fine. 

It’s the bloody Olympics and skating fine gets you nothing. What he needed was a fantastic, fabulous, awe-inspiring feat of figure skating. Instead he skated _fine_ and it put him in fourth. 

The moment they step away from the cameras Simon lists everything Louis did wrong and reinforces the fact that everything he did do right he could have done better. Louis’ stuck in the place he’s been for four years, wanting to disagree and hate him so fucking badly yet knowing everything his coach says is unfortunately fact. 

Louis could have skated better. He should have skated better. And he doesn’t want to think about it, but there’s this little voice in his head asking if he would have if a particularly curly haired bloke had been sitting in the audience. 

But that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever thought because four years of grueling hard work to crawl out of the hole he’d been stuffed in and a lifetime of dedication don’t result in skills dependent on one dimple bracketed smile. It just. Kind of feels like it right now because it really fucking hurt after sitting at every game Harry’s played that Harry’s nowhere to be found after he promised to show. 

Louis’ not completely faultless either. He’s been sitting silent every time a text comes in from the hockey player yesterday after the confusing mess of emotions he’s been trying to sort since the thing with Joanie’s mum and his own revelations about his friendship with Harry. 

Right when he’d thought about replying last night he’d fucking dropped his phone in the bathtub. Like a twat. It’s still sitting in a bag of rice in his room so as he knocks off his skates he’s got no way to communicate with anyone just how terrible he’s feeling until he’s left the building well before the rest of the skaters finish and runs head first into Niall leaning against the side of the building.

“Thought you might duck out, Simon’s a tit.” 

“Don’t wanna say shite ‘bout it.” 

“Alrighty Mr. Sunshine, what do you want then?” Niall says, smile unbothered by Louis’ obvious sour mood. 

Louis shifts his weight from foot to foot and massages the worn strap of his bag. Impulsively he stretches his hand out. 

“Your phone?” 

He’s genuinely surprised when Niall actually places his phone in Louis’ hand. It’s easy enough to find the contact he’s looking for and still running on the impulsive thrill of actually doing this he hits diall. It goes straight to voicemail. 

“Do you have any idea how uncomfortable arena seating is? I doubt you do considering the fact you weren’t sitting in one of them chairs when you promised you’d fucking be there. After all the games I came to watch you couldn’t sit through four minutes?” 

A surprising amount of emotion swells inside Louis’ chest and he stutters through the last few words, completely caught off guard by his own reaction. Niall’s mouth has dropped wide like he wants to intercede but doesn’t know how to do so without getting his head ripped off. Louis’ just about to push through this bullshit waterworks happening to him right now so he can call Harry every curse he’s ever heard when a voice stops him. 

“Louis!” 

Louis spins to find Liam jogging across the parking lot. 

“I have to go deal with your siamese twin, not that you care because you’re not even fucking listening.”

Louis shoves the phone into Niall as Liam jumps over the last dirty slush pile of brown snow before reaching them. 

“Harry’s so sorry he couldn’t make it, man,” Liam starts with and Louis rolls his eyes because if Harry were sorry he’d actually be here. Liam continues undeterred. “We were at the women's game last night and he got into it with some other dude. Nothing big, pulled him out of it before it even really started, but it’s all over the news and Coach is pissed. He’s stuck on boot licking duties 'til the end of the games 'n said you weren’t answering your phone. He’s all torn up about it.” 

Great. So now Louis’ the arse for chewing Harry out for nothing. He’d just assumed Harry had been coasting through life like the jock he was, not a care in the world. Harry in a fight? Off the ice? Louis can’t even picture it. 

Louis glares at the phone still in Niall’s hand before turning back to Liam.

“You couldn’t a’ run over here two minutes sooner?” 

Niall pats his back. “It’ll get sorted out, just say you’re sorry.” 

“I don’t wanna be sorry.” Louis attempts to be stern but he’s still worked up from whatever the fuck happened on the phone and even he can hear the whine in his voice. 

Niall squeezes his shoulder while Liam gives him a sympathetic look.

“He wanted to be here, Louis, I swear. Look, the real reason I’m here is because there’s no way Harry can play this game without you two sorting your shit out first. Meet us rinkside before the game and I’ll get you a few minutes with him to clear the air, okay?” 

Louis kicks at the snow. 

“Okay.”

Liam physically drops with relief. He bumps Niall on the shoulder with a quick parting and jogs back to wherever the fuck he came. Probably the hockey stadium if the direction is any indication. 

“Let’s get you some food, Mr. Grumpy Pants. Grovelling takes sustenance.” 

“You would know.” 

Niall swats the back of Louis’ head. 

After a quick meal they run to their accommodations to change. Louis unburies his phone from rice and clicks it all back together. The universe gives him a break and it turns on as normal. Sure enough there are unread texts from Harry explaining why he wouldn’t be able to make it to the skate, and above them are newer messages from his family. 

He glances at the time. There’s ten minutes before Niall will come looking for him. He presses dial. 

“Oh my Louis, you were so gorgeous darling,” is the first thing his mother says the moment the line picks up. Her voice is thick and sniffly in a way that brings to mind a clear image of her grasping her chest with a handful of tissues. 

“Thanks mum,” he says, subdued and humbled by her overwhelm. 

“I just- I was so worried the entire time. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that, but you’re my baby and I don’t know what I would do… “ she trails off to blow her nose. 

Louis swipes his fringe to the side, habitually making sure it’s in place to cover the scar. “I’m sorry.” 

“What for?” His mum huffs like she’s trying to laugh. 

Louis shrugs despite there being no one to see. When his mouth opens a floodgate has lifted to let every regret he's locked away flow out. “For making you worry. For never being around. I miss you, not just now but all the time, even when I’m home. I’ve missed you since forever, I think. I don’t tell you I love you enough and I never help out around the house and I feel like I wanted to shut the world out, but I didn’t mean for it to include my family.”

“Oh Loubear, it’s okay. It’s been hard for all of us, but we’re still here. We love you so much.” His mother coos gently and it’s her tone more than anything, that soothing cadence only his mother has, that calms him. “What’s brought this all on?” 

Louis chews his lip. Thinks of bright green eyes and comforting hands.

“I met someone and I just... I don’t think it’s going to work out.” He picks absently at the threads of the standard bedsheets of the mattress he sits on. 

“Why not?” His mother asks gently. 

Louis’ heart pounds in his chest. He hasn’t talked to anyone like this in years, this open, this vulnerable. The dark swirling cloud of ugly truth he’s felt overhead isn’t something he wants to hold onto anymore. It’s time to stop hiding in fear and face it. 

In a low voice he admits his greatest fear, “Because I think I forgot how to love.”

“Oh sweetheart.” 

And it’s her tone, more than anything, that makes him break. 

Niall doesn’t mention it when Louis shows up downstairs with puffy eyes and ruffled hair he didn’t have time to style after letting his mum talk him down. He just slings an arm around Louis’ shoulder and marches them towards the stadium one footstep at a time. Louis keeps his arm around Niall’s waist and clings to his jacket the entire way. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry

The time spent caged in the gear locker is agony. Harry feels every second pass as a possible second Louis’ stepping on ice. He sent a text telling Louis he wouldn’t make it, but just like the last few texts he’s sent there’s no response. They haven’t talked in two days and Harry doesn’t have half a clue what's caused the disconnect. With a rough yank he tears the tape off as he finishes winding it around one of countless sticks. 

Stephen, the gear manager, is nice enough, but the looming presence of this being part of Harry’s reprimand over their head put a strain on their interactions. They work in silence for the full two hours before Harry’s turning into the locker room to prep for warm up with relief. It’s short lived the moment he feels the tension singing in the air. 

His teammates flick glances at him, some of them openly scowling as Harry walks to the locker with his name scrawled on temporary tape. He catches his name spoken underbreath, rumours and mutterings flitting around like a swath of dust coated moths smothering him. Even Liam’s companionable greeting does little to make breathing easier. 

The feeling multiplies once warm up truly starts. Harry’s eyes stay glued to the puck as frustration builds every time he’s forced to double back at an abrupt change in play. It’s odd to get so worked up when drilling with his own team members, but then he clues in. They deliberately aren’t passing to him. 

The snubs from Mitch are the clearest, but Harry had expected it after the radio silence he’s received since he attempted to apologise to him and Sarah. The rest seem to be following suit, and fear of hatred locks his limbs. He won't survive a game if both the opposing team and his own are throwing him into the boards. But he hasn’t even been touched, barely even a knock against his stick. They don’t hate him, it’s much worse. 

They don’t trust him. 

It’s the semi-finals of the Olympics and his own teammates won't pass him the puck. 

It happens so quickly Harry doesn’t see it. One second Liam’s on his wing, the next he’s not. And still not. And still not, even when the play has finished and they’re setting up to drill down to the other goalie. Harry whirls his head around and there’s the motherfucking medic kneeling down by Liam on the ice. 

Harry doesn’t take a second to slash his way there and get on his hands and knees beside his best friend. 

“The fuck happened?” 

Liam’s plum on his backside with his ankle in the delicate grip of the team medic, one skate tossed carelessly to the side. 

“I don’t know man, caught the wrong edge and went down on my ankle.” 

Harry narrows his eyes. Liam’s jittery and won’t look at him, either because he’s actually in a substantial amount of pain or because he’s lying. Harry can’t tell what the hell he’d be playing at during warm ups for something as monumental as the semi-finals, but he can’t exactly call Liam out on it with the medic still going about his business.

“Help me into the lockers?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Harry hooks an arm around Liam’s waist and together they heave up and make their way into the locker room. 

He doesn’t even notice the medic hasn’t followed until he sees who’s sitting on the bench beneath the bold print STYLES. Liam stands straight and takes his spare skate from Harry’s slack grip. 

“I’ll be in the hall until you sort this shit out.” 

Harry watches his friend walk out on two perfectly fine feet. Louis’ sitting with his hands under his thighs, tapping his sneakers nervously on the padded floor when Harry turns to face him. 

“Don’t listen to the message from Niall.” 

Everything about this encounter has Harry feeling one step behind, Louis’ words no different. He asks the first of many questions he has. 

“Why?” 

“It’s me having a go at you for not being there this morning. I didn’t have me own phone and didn’t know about the fight, which,” Louis gestures at him in exasperation, “what the actual hell, Harry?” 

Harry shrugs sheepishly, embarrassed by his own actions the previous night. “I was upset.” 

“So you punched someone?” 

And that’s not what it was like at all. Bile pools in Harry’s throat that Louis might actually think he could be the type to lash out at the slightest provocation. 

“No I… you weren’t talking to me and I didn’t know why, and that’s not me saying it’s your fault I’m just saying it upset me, so I had a bit to drink and someone wasn’t pleased with what drunk me had to say about the game. There was a little shove, I swear nothing more.” 

Louis chews on his lip and thinks it over while Harry anxiously awaits judgement. 

“I dropped my phone in the bath.” Louis’ admission sends a wave of relief through Harry, but the flicker of hesitation before he continues keeps Harry’s muscles clenched with anticipation. “But that was after I didn’t respond. I just… What are we doing here Harry?” 

And isn’t that the question they’ve been dancing around since the start. Harry does the only thing he can do and admits the truth. 

“I don’t know. This is one of the most important days of my career, of my life, and all I can think about is how I couldn’t go watch you skate this morning.” 

Louis huffs and swipes his fringe to the side in a nervous habit Harry recognizes from the plane. 

“I fucked it up, and the minute I came off ice they sat us on the couch and I didn’t even want to wait to see my scores. I just wanted to go on a walk and see you wear that terrible cow shirt in public.” 

Harry snorts. He can picture it. Louis mocking him with raised eyebrows and squinty eyed smiles and maybe, if he’s lucky, they’re holding hands so Louis’ cheeks are flush with the embarrassment of everyone knowing just who this idiot belonged to. But it can’t happen. Can it? 

Harry sits with a heavy thump on the bench, all his gear dragging him down. 

“Well. You live in England and I… don’t.” He cringes at his lame ending. 

Louis slumps beside him in a way that leaves their knees purposefully touching. His hand settles next to Harry’s and their pinkies slowly link. Despite the topic of discussion the small act sends warmth bubbling in Harry’s stomach. 

Louis rolls his head towards him. “We both spent our lives working towards this moment. We owe it to ourselves not to fuck it up, even if we’ve done things we’d do differently now, we’re on top because of what we’ve been through to get here. We did that. In four days I want to be able to say I gave everything the best I had, don’t you?” 

The passion in him blazes, reigniting Harry’s own. He’s spent so long trying to break out of his own shadow. 

“Yeah.” 

Louis’ finger squeezes his and they meet eyes.

“Well, everything includes you. I want to spend the next four days doing everything I’ve been holding back on with you. I don’t want to waste another minute, unless you think differently?” 

The hesitation in his voice won’t do when everything he’s saying is practically everything Harry’s dreamed of. Harry turns to face him properly on the bench and leans close into Louis’ space. 

“I want that. I really- can I kiss you now?” 

Warm hands wrap around his face as Louis’ lips collide with his. It’s a bit painful where Harry’s bottom lip is torn and they’re at an awkward angle twisted on the bench and a mile of padded gear between them, but it’s Louis so it’s also the best fucking kiss Harry’s ever had. It breaks only for them to tilt faces and rejoin their lips at a better angle, their smiles calming down enough for their lips to fully meet and Harry swipes his tongue over Louis’ bottom lip before they’re both parting their mouths for something deeper and-

Louis springs off of him the second a knock on the door happens only to be followed by Liam poking his head in. Guilty, they both wipe their mouths. 

“I heard the talking stop and figured you were done. Sorry to cut in but we got a game to play, H. Teams wrapping up and headed our way any minute.” 

Harry looks up at Louis with a desperate grip on his hand. 

“Meet me after yea? I’ll take you on a date.” 

“Oh will you now?” Louis arches an eyebrow with a snarky smile. 

Harry plays along, giddy and thrumming with excitement. “I mean, will you go out with me? Tonight?” 

“Okay.” Louis doesn’t even hesitate to play it coy, his smile wide and brilliant. There’s something so reassuring about how obviously this conversation is having a similar effect on both of them. 

Louis leans in for a quick kiss on the lips, only Harry pulls him in and keeps him there because it’s still so new and he’s been thinking about this for fucking days. 

“Guys.” 

Harry reluctantly lets Louis go at Liam’s warning. He savours the blush on Louis’ cheek, better than anything he imagined. Liam makes way for Louis to duck out seconds before the rest of the team floods into the locker room. None of them question why Harry’s already sat in there. 

He stands to scan the mess of helmets interspersed with shaggy helmet head hair until he spots their captain. The title is technical, meant only to signify that Jeff is the singular member of the team allowed to speak with the officials on ice, yet every player is well aware the bold stitched C comes with more than that. The C means you’re respected, well liked, and level headed. It means the team wants you to represent them when shit goes south. It also means you give the uplifting speech to put the team together again after Coach tears everyone apart. 

“Hey Azoff,” Harry greets as he hovers next to the man on the bench. They’ve gotten on so far, but Harry knows Jeff has to do what’s best for the team as a whole. “Can I say something during your pre-speech tonight?” 

Jeff thinks it over, his eyes scanning the men still rustling about around them before his steady gaze returns to Harry. 

“Don’t fuck it up, kid.” 

“I won’t.”

He doesn’t. 

They’re half way through the pre-game speech with helmets on and mouthguards in when Jeff nods at Harry to stand from the bench. 

“By now I’m sure you’re all aware of the unfortunate events that happened during the women's hockey game. The official apology letter my manager will have me sign does nothing to inform you of how shit I feel for being the ass proving everyone who’s ever called us brutes right. I take full responsibility for my actions, and I understand the consequences may include losing your respect and trust, but I won’t be able to pick up a stick again if this has even the slightest effect on our play.” 

He makes sure to meet everyone’s eyes around the room, head held high as he admits his guilt. The conversation he’s just had with Louis is still on the edge of his mind and his tongue jumps into speaking before he’s thought it fully through.

“Someone just reminded me of how hard we’ve all worked to get where we are today, from toddler skates to sitting in this bleach fumed locker room, we’ve all overcome challenges and proved people wrong and fought for our chance to play on Olympic ice. Please leave the grudge on the bench so we can go out and play the best fucking game we’ve ever played, and if you want to tear a strip out of me after then that’s fine, I could probably stand to lose a few more teeth anyway, but at least we’ll all be holding medals as you do so.”

He gets a few chuckles and a few eye rolls and a sprinkle of men who continue to glare, unimpressed. He can’t ask for more.

“Off your asses, let’s go.” Jeff claps to break the moment and ushers them all into a hastily formed circle with a mix of bulky gloves and bare hands fisted in the center. “America on three, one two three-”

“America!” The men chant in unison. 

The circle breaks and they’re off marching down the hall towards the rink with the ritual line up of fist bumps with the suits. Jeff winks at Harry as they file out. 

“You didn’t lie. Good job kid.” 

Harry’s line is still third on the play, but once they’re out there the puck finds its way to Harry’s stick and in a blink it’s at the back of the opposing net. Then it happens again. Then Mitch, who’s been the last one to hold out, is in the perfect place and Harry passes it up stream. Mitch takes the shot and scores. He takes it as the apology it is and rubs over Harry’s helmet in the celebrating dogpile. 

A line change pulls Harry off ice shortly after, but it does nothing to dilute the soaring feeling he has. His smile could probably light the fucking dark side of the moon. Least that’s what it feels like when his cheeks are aching with the stretch of it. 

It only widens further when he turns on the bench to see the crowd and finds the lips he’s just tasted pulled into a similar smile. 

The game ends six to one. 

Gloves and helmets are tossed carelessly onto the ice as the entire team dog-piles in the centre in unashamed joy. No matter the outcome of their final game, all of them will be going home with an Olympic medal around their necks. Harry’s crushed under a mess of sweaty pads and stinky men and he knows from the throb in his heart and the blur of tears in his eyes that no camera will ever be able to capture this feeling. This is his Olympic moment. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Louis

Apparently when the bloody Olympics are in town every restaurant is booked solid. This isn’t much of a problem, because it means Louis is able to not so coyly tug on Harry’s hand to bring him upstairs into his room. Harry’s dress shirt is instantly unbuttoned to his navel because as Harry puts it:

“It’s fucking hot okay, like literally hot and I am going to die of heat stroke. Would it be weird to ask your neighbours to borrow a hair elastic? My neck is getting gross.” 

It is a bit weird, but they do it anyway and soon enough Harry is lounging on Louis’ wrinkled bed spread in tight jeans and half a shirt and little distracting curls sticking out of his manbun while eating chow mein. Louis’ outfit of matching tight jeans and a loose t-shirt that he definitely didn’t spend every second between the end of the game and Harry’s arrival stressing over is similarly a waste as he’s quick to pull on a jumper after they open a window for Harry’s space-heater tendency and the moment Louis sits down he admits to having to unbutton his jeans because:

“It’s not a line, I swear, they’re seriously too tight to sit in on the bed like this unless I want to forever give up the ability to father children.” 

So it’s not the fancy dining experience they’d planned, but it’s perfect. Once the noodles are gone they give up all pretense of formalities and agree to strip themselves out of their own trousers. It happens in awkward yanks like peeling snakeskin. Both flop on the bed in their boxers chuckling over the ridiculousness of being Olympic athletes still out of breath from a fight with their own clothing. 

They settle in to watch something idle on Louis’ laptop on an account Harry logs himself into once he’s ribbed Louis long enough for not having any downloads. They make it five minutes into whatever it is before Louis’ overly aware of Harry’s hand on his waist and the fact that they’re laying on a bed, so he turns to wiggle between Harry’s legs and leans up to kiss him. It’s meant to be a quick kiss but Harry’s other hand curls into Louis’ hair and holds him there. Louis is powerless to do anything but sink into it. 

He trails a hand over Harry’s solid chest and down to the hem line. His fingers push up under the fabric in search of bare skin at the waist of Harry’s pants. 

Harry jumps at the contact and Louis pulls away, breathing heavy and heart thrumming just from the simple act of making out. 

“Okay?” 

“Yeah,” Harry licks his lips, a happy glint in his eyes, “s’just cold fingers.” 

Louis feels his face heat and he curls his fingers into his palm to hide them from Harry’s skin. “Sorry.” 

“No.” Harry grabs his hand and brings it back where it was, pressed flat against his smooth stomach. He nuzzles close to Louis to murmur quietly, “It’s okay, I like it. Want you to touch me, wanna feel you too.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Harry hums and tugs on the bottom of Louis’ jumper. 

He takes the hint and strips it off, not stopping when it takes his shirt with it. Goosebumps rise instantly at the comparably cold air of the room. Harry follows by taking his shirt the rest of the way off and suddenly they’re both next to naked with Louis perched between Harry’s muscular thighs and the air is singing with possibilities. 

“Hey.” Harry’s confident hands smooth over Louis’ waist as he speaks gently, soothing Louis’ overwhelm. “We can stop, whatever you want.” 

Louis shakes his head. He doesn’t want to stop, he just wants to take this moment to realize how crazy it is that they’ve gone from strangers to this so quickly. How, beneath the nerves of excitement, being with Harry feels right. Like it was always going to come down to the two of them here, like this. 

“I’ve wanted you since the plane,” Louis admits, palms stroking over the warm skin and fine hair of the thighs wrapped around him. 

Harry’s mouth twitches into a teasing smile. His own fingers dance around the elastic band below Louis’ belly button. 

“Have you thought about it? Me and you?” 

Louis’ face goes from flushed to flaming at the reminder of mornings he’s woken achingly hard and the nights he’s guiltily gasped Harry’s name.

“Maybe.” 

“I have.” Louis’ eyes round at Harry’s bold admission, finding it hotter than he’d imagined to know Harry’s been thinking of him.

Louis leans over him to go for a kiss, but Harry uses the moment to take him off guard, flipping them over in an easy display of strength. Louis gasps as his back meets the cool plush duvet and Harry’s searing hot body gently pressing him down.

“Thought about kissing you here,” Harry ducks to latch his lips on Louis’ neck in gentle suction before his teeth nip and stoke the fire in Louis’ belly. Harry trails his lips down to his collarbone to speak against it, “And here.” He repeats the action. 

“What else?” Louis asks just as breathless as the jeans had made him earlier, only this time his palms are sweating and his throat is dry. 

Harry meets his eyes as his hands turn firm around Louis’ waist. With slow control he slots their hips together, Louis’ legs naturally wrapping around Harry’s waist while the drag of their thin pants create burning friction over Louis’ sensitive cock, growing thicker at the feel of Harry against him. 

“Thought about what you’d feel like under me.” Harry breathes into the crease of Louis’ neck, his whole body shivering as he lets out a strained laugh. “Wasn’t even close. You’re perfection, Louis.”

Louis surges up for a kiss and this time Harry meets him without interruption. 

They move in volleys of strength. Harry’s sheer force meets Louis’ fluid grace in a passionate collision, heat building between them in startling speed until Louis’ spilling into his pants from the dry friction alone. Harry follows shortly after. It leaves both of them breathless and sweat slicked and mildly giddy from the endorphin high. As far as first dates go, Louis’ pretty certain it can’t be beat. 

The day of his final competition brings a unique sense of calm. Louis sits on the floor in a corner of the athlete staging area, stretching out his hamstrings while a flurry of activity whirls around him. The pleasant tug on his muscles is all that fills his mind, a bittersweetness to the routine knowing this is his final time. 

“Hey.” Louis looks up to meet whiskey eyes and a gentle smile. Zayn’s costume fits him like a glove, a swirl of black and gold that makes him severe in a way he only ever is on ice. “Long way from Ice Palace, huh?” 

Louis snorts at the mention of the first arena he and Zayn shared in the early days of their training, working head to head under the same coach at the time. 

Zayn tilts his head in consideration, a seriousness to his voice despite the warmth it holds. “Couldn’t have done it with anyone else to be next to me up there. Left or right of me, you’re the reason I’m even here.”

“I got lucky it was you.” Louis admits, squinting against the lights as he meets Zayn’s eyes. 

If it had been anyone else, their history could have so quickly turned into a sour, toxic thing. Their breakup was something he worried would screw them both over, make their professional rivalry into something personal, but Zayn never was cruel like that. Louis feels a piece of him settle knowing wherever they end up in the future, whatever podium either of them stand on tonight, things will stay okay between them. 

He smiles gently. “I’m glad it was you.”

They share a fond look before Zayn knocks his toe habitually against Louis’ shoe and parts. He’s quickly swallowed by the busy swarm of people following their own pre-competition rituals. 

Simon stands by the boards with an impassive stare. Beside him Louis crouches to test the flex of his skates. 

“Don’t compromise speed for artistry. The marks will already be topped out and you don’t have the technicals to spare.” 

Louis grunts in something of an answer. He spends more time than he needs to in a squat just so he doesn’t have to see his coach’s face. 

“You need to make one-seventy.” Simon says, but he’s actually saying Louis needs to make history. 

No skater has broken past the one-sixty-eight margin set during last year's Worlds, but Louis needs to claim a full two points past the world record in order to earn this gold. 

Louis bounces on his heels one more time and uses the momentum to pull himself up, out of the squat, and once he’s standing he focuses on clicking his blade guards off and placing them exactly parallel to the boards. Some superstitions run deep. 

Then he’s out of reasons to avoid the pointed look from Simon. 

“If you fall?” 

“I get back up,” Louis says, just as he’s said every time Simon’s asked him since they started their professional partnership. The difference is now Louis _believes_ it. 

Simon nods, double taps the ledge of the boards, and steps away. 

The arena hushes as Louis glides to centre ice, the crisp note of his blades the only sound. At dead centre he lays a hand across his heart and humbly bows his head with an exhale. The nerves he’d expected are finally there, thrumming beneath his skin, yet the crushing weight of expectation has been lifted by the knowledge that after this skate he’s got friends who will hug him regardless of the outcome. He has a family halfway around the world staying up late just to experience it with him. He has a man that will still kiss him. 

This performance is no longer about proving himself or winning some shiny medal. It’s his goodbye to the person he spent so many years being. The boy who loved nothing but skating and kept waiting for the embrace of cold indifferent ice to be enough. The boy who didn’t want to be left so he was always alone. The boy who spent every waking moment terrified. 

This is goodbye to that boy. 

Inside Louis’ chest his heart is gentle. A small tug pulls on the corner of his lips. The music starts and his body and his body forgets every rule he's ever forced on it, moving as it's yearned to do since his first step on ice. He becomes a streak of magic, embodied.

The crisp note the edge of his blades sings out in tune with his soul, the purr of his cross cuts in time with his lungs expanding, the quick chip of his pick lifting him into the air synced to his heart beat. Lifted in air by nothing more than momentum and skill he hovers, spinning a full rotation every third of a second and yet seemingly frozen in time. Nothing exists for this moment. Nothing but the pure euphoria of being exactly where he’s meant to be.

After his final spin of his routine, Louis takes two soft steps into his closing position while the last orchestral chord rings. It’s swallowed by the roar of the standing crowd and Louis promptly collapses to his knees. His chest heaves with great big sobs with the weight of everything he’s felt since he pulled on his first pair of skates at the age of four. Gone blind with tears he unsteadily finds his feet and slides towards the open gate. 

His feet don’t make it a step off the ice before he’s lifted and swallowed in several pairs of arms. He is loved. 

❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄ .: ⋆*·ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆* ❄

##### Harry

Harry hasn’t felt this nervous since the day of his NHL draft. The morning spent laundering gear of his team mates leaves him scrambling through empty halls of the arena to find the right staircase gate to his seat. His rubber soles squeak against the polished concrete of the hall and echo around him under the murmur of the crowd on the other side of thick walls. He dashes wildly past unfazed attendants and nearly uplifts a popcorn vender as the tin voice of the announcer comes from all directions and bounces around the vast space. 

“- London, England, skating to _Moonlight Sonata,_ Lou..”

The rest is drowned out by the swell of the crowd and Harry doesn’t know what the fucks caused it and he’s sweating, heart hammering, as he loses patience for running in circles and ducks through the closest doorway into the arena and headfirst into a wall of sound. His ears ring so loud he can’t even hear his own panting. 

The noise is astonishingly quick to go quiet and Harry finds enough focus to see the ice. Poised in the centre of the great white expanse is the glittering star of Louis Tomlinson. His shirt is both whimsical and classic, long sleeves draped over his delicate arms in a blue to black ombré, a deep cut revealing the creamy skin of his chest. 

The moment he moves he explodes into starburst. 

Tiny crystals shimmer on every inch of him, turning Louis into a dazzling vision floating on ice. Every move seems effortless, magical. Harry’s brain is unable to merge the snarky boy swaddled like a penguin in his anorak with the snowflake prince twirling on ice. 

Something shifts in the crowd as Louis rounds one end of the rink in powerful cross strokes, a tension singing through every soul present and Harry isn’t an exception. His blood vibrates with anxiety he doesn’t understand the cause of, completely absorbed in every move Louis makes as he crosses centre ice backwards at great speed while tension grows palpable. The entire arena holds its breath. 

Louis jumps. 

Since the first time he witnessed the crinkle of eyes and playful lilt of his lips, Harry has been enamoured with Louis Tomlinson’s smile. Harry’s worked hard to earn every one he’s seen, and dazzling as they’d all been, they have nothing on the expression on Louis’ face as he takes the centre podium. 

Harry’s own face might split in half with how wide his grin has stretched. His lungs expand to the brink of bursting before he lets out a holler, his voice blending with the roar of the standing crowd around him. 

That boy is gorgeous. Harry knows all the little things he’s learned about him barely add up to knowing the surface of him, but deep down a certainty sparks in him. He loves this boy. This man. This human being bursting with starlight.

Harry tightens his fingers on the meat of his own hips, flicks his long hair out of his face, toys with his lip. The heavy black curtain of the backstage area spits out shiny faced skaters one by one before settling into stillness. Harry’s heart jumps every time it so much as twitches.

In a shimmer Louis appears. His hair has matted and fallen across his forehead in a spiky fringe and his cheeks are flush. Harry only sees the blue shine of his eyes for a second before they’re colliding in an explosion of laughter and tears. The hot press of Louis’ body against his is a balm to the ache of addiction Harry’s developed. 

“Holy fuck!” Louis gasps wetly into his ear as they pull back just enough to see each other’s faces. 

Harry clings to him. “You did it, you’re incredible, I think I started crying.” 

“You were crying? I was sobbing! And everyone saw, oh fuck.” Louis puts a hand to his head, blinking like he’s trying to see through the haze they’re both wrapped up in. 

“Everyone was crying!” Niall joins them with a slap to Louis’ back that turns into an arm over his shoulder. Louis sighs, but his face seems incapable of doing anything but smiling still while Niall nudges him playfully. 

Louis looks through spiky eyelashes at Harry with a serious touch to his honesty. 

“It means a lot, that you’re here,” he clarifies, “it means a fucking lot to me.” 

Harry wants to say it. There’s an orb glowing in his chest pulsing with the need to let out the words caught in his throat. But this is Louis’ moment, Louis’ day. Harry won’t step on that anymore than his presence already has. 

“Couldn’t be anywhere else,” he answers and it’s no less genuinely said than the words he doesn’t. 

He’s thankful for every odd twist of circumstances that have led him to the moment he ducks down and captures Louis’ lips in a kiss full of starshine. 

How can such small fingers hold this much strength? So Harry wonders as he begins to lose feeling in his hand while skaters warm up on the ice below. 

“Everything will work out, Louis.” 

Louis huffs deliberately loud for Harry to hear, he knows because Louis shoots him a look to make sure he’s aware of how Harry’s insolence is appreciated when they’re clearly dealing with life or death. It’s a look Harry recognizes from their very first conversation over seats on the airplane and any irritation it once sparked is replaced by fondness. 

It’s still in place as Louis slips off his shoes and throws the blanket across their laps. 

Harry can’t hold back his curiosity any longer. “What’s with the shoes?”

“‘M not lying about the poor circulation, my toes start to freeze if I sit for too long,” Louis grumbles, still fussing to get comfy. 

Harry wants to swaddle him up and never let him go. His plans for this are interrupted by the overhead announcer. 

“From Mullingar, Ireland, Niall Horan and Hailee Steinfield. They dance t-“

Louis enthusiastically claps and smiles at the cheeky wink Niall sends out to an appreciative crowd, the volume of which overwhelms the announcer. Once the music starts the pair are unrecognizable from the self declared king of pints and stern professional Harry’s glimpsed sporadically. Their skate is a gorgeous contemporary thing filled with poignant moments and fluid grace. 

Beside him Louis sucks in a breath at the end of the competition as the scoreboard tallies. They line up to put Niall and Hailee in silver, a single point below the Canadian newcomers. 

As they emerge from the backstage curtains after all the fuss, Hailee is pulled to the side by her own people while Louis jumps at Niall. Harry can’t help but notice the ease in which Louis’ feet come straight off the ground as the two hug. 

“So bloody close, Nialler. Practically a tie.” 

Niall scrunches a hand through his hair and smiles ruefully, hands on his own hips now. 

“We were thinking of ending it after these games but now we’ve got ourselves a nice little rivalry to push us to the next ones. Right on the podium we’s decided we’re all in.” 

To be thinking of the next games while the sweat still soaks his skin beneath his medal from these ones is a mindset only athletes could understand, Harry thinks. He can see it in the clear spark of Niall’s eyes as he glimpses the youthful gold winning team hugging their own loved ones a few feet away. Nothing like a good spirited rivalry to push the boundaries of a sport further. 

That’s how Harry feels later that day as his own skates meet Olympic ice for the last time in the 2010 Games, crouching into a faceoff position at centre ice opposite the Canadians themselves. The jeering from the home crowd, the intense stare of his Coach crossing his arms by the boards, the shuffling unease of his teammates on the bench. It all melts away in the opening face off the second Harry slaps his stick down and steals the puck. 

The game ties itself up in the third period. Adrenaline keeps him numb to the strain in his muscles as he pushes himself to the limit, the team flowing around him to make quick plays every time the puck is in their possession. The Canadians are too good at stealing the puck right before Harry can get a shot in, but the American defence knocks the puck back to Harry in a minute and the loop starts again as Harry works with his line to move up the rink. It’s a thing of beauty to be back in sync with his team, to pass to Liam on his right and count on Mitch on his left, to hear the shout of appraisal from Jeff down in the crease and the thunder of his teams sticks every time he flies by the bench. 

With thirty seconds left on the clock the puck slips into the American net. The crowd rises so quickly Harry feels the centre of gravity of the entire stadium shift. He expects to feel disappointed as the buzzer goes off for the end of the game, yet the group hug they all pile into is full of laughter and smiles. They did it. They played the finals at the Olympic Games and they did it together.

Liam ruffles a hand through Harry’s hair while Mitch throws an arm around his waist and everyone is crammed together in a tight ball of brotherhood. As they pose on ice for their professional picture to be kept in the history books Harry’s face starts to hurt from the depth of his dimples. The medal around their necks might not be gold yet it shines just the same. 

Most of the rink has cleared by the time the photographer has dismissed them but Harry would have to be blind to miss the blue eyes glittering on the other side of marked up two inch plexiglass. 

They meet at the side boards in a crushing kiss that leaves both breathless. 

“Tonight?” Louis pants. 

“Tonight,” Harry swears with his hands instinctively tightening on Louis. 

They’d stayed tame in Louis’ bed the other night, not wanting soreness of any kind to compromise either of their performances on the Olympic stage. Now that caution can be blown to the wind little else remains on Harry’s brain until he’s standing on the doorstep of Louis’ accommodations with his clothes sticking to his skin in places he didn’t have the patience to dry after his post-game shower. He doesn’t plan on wearing them for much longer anyway. 

The door opens in a waft of vanilla. 

⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRUE TO LIFE REF: things kept the same, things changed
> 
> I forgot about the opening ceremonies so there’s that. I put the boys in Whistler instead of Olympic Village because I felt like it (and my favourite ski hill is much more romantic than the waterfront, trust me on this one) 
> 
> For the skating we are close to the actual schedule of events with some minor tweaking here. Also f* the dance compulsories (you’re welcome) 
> 
> For the hockey we stayed true to the order of games, the teams playing, and the outcomes, but I am not rewatching all those games to give you accurate rep of how they went down. sorry not sorry I got other things to be doing like writing more stories ;) 
> 
> Yes. I’m sure you all know, the cauldron really did fail to light during opening ceremonies (talk about AWKWARD). Yes. We had a record warm winter that year. It is the only year in my entire life (and my mothers) that those mountains did not have snow in February.
> 
> The incident with Louis during practice is something very rare but was inspired by footage of it happening to Tessa Virtue (her finger was sliced by another skaters blade) and her partner Scott, already well known for his over-protective tendencies, LOST IT on the offending team (well deserved imo as it could have been a much worse injury and though it was an accident the other team were not respecting the rules of the ice.) 
> 
> Every athlete mentioned (not based on a celebrity) is based on a real life counterpart who competed at these games. 
> 
> Shen Xue and her partner Zhao Hongbo of China are the first skaters L&H watch together, they skated to _Who Wants to Live Forever_ and ultimately won well deserved gold. I recommend watching their skate if you’re at all interested. 
> 
> TRIGGERS: Many of these contain Spoilers but remember -> Safety First! <-
> 
> Sports Related Death:  
> Mentioned - Sadly these games had two very real major moments of tragedy. The first happened mere hours before the opening ceremonies, Georgian luge racer Nodar Kumaritashvili lost control during a training run and crashed into an unpadded steel post. He was 21. 
> 
> Referenced Death:  
> Part of the Plot - Two days before her short programme, Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochet’s mother fell victim of a fatal heart attack. Joannie persevered through the games and dedicated her well earned Olympic Medal to the memory of her mother. 
> 
> Mentioned - flight 548 of 1961, a crash that killed all 72 people onboard, including the entire US figure skating team and their coaches en route to Brussels. 
> 
> Although elements of these incidents have been altered to play into this narrative, no disrespect is intended towards those involved or affected.
> 
> Sports Related Traumatic Injury:  
> Mentioned - Selena’s character is based on Katelyn Osmond, who broke her fibula on ice and came back to conquer Olympic gold in the team event and bronze for ladies singles in Korea. She retired with three olympic medals at the ripe age of 24. 
> 
> Described - Four years previous this fic, Louis had an accident on ice involving severe head trauma. It is alluded to throughout the entire fic and revealed in detail in Part Two. He has lasting symptoms of PTSD from this event. 
> 
> Eating Disorders:  
> Mentioned - Throughout the fic Louis is very aware of his eating habits, though there are no explicit acts of an ED. At the very last second I added in Louis’ history with bulimia. He becomes overly aware of a pint he’s having even though he believes he really shouldn’t be having it, which leads to his anxiety and stress triggering his gag reflex muscle memory. His internal monologue mentions having past issues with an ED. It is contained to the last few paragraphs of Part One, if you would like to skip it please contact me and I can send you Part One without these mentions. ED’s are a huge issue in the figure skating world, especially in the preteen ages, one of the many things I wanted to use this fic to shine a little light on.
> 
> -> continue for the smut


	3. Epilogue - Smut

### EPILOGUE - GRATUITOUS SMUT

### 

⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

##### Louis

The second the door flies open with a bang against the opposite wall Harry’s hands are on him. Louis can hardly breathe with how aggressive Harry’s mouth works his over in a slick push and pull. They stumble backwards into the room and Harry takes no time to palm the centre of his shirt between his shoulder blades and yank it over head in an impressive flex and stretch of muscle. His hands are back on Louis before the shirt touches the floor and now it’s Louis’ shirt being rucked up overhead and mussing every strand he’d spent the last several minutes agonizing over while waiting for Harry. 

The brush of hot skin against his own sends a wave of goosebumps along Louis’ body. His belly clenches in anticipation as one of Harry’s hands threads into his hair to guide the kiss and the other palms his arse. Louis’ back hits a wall and before he can gain any spacial awareness, there’s another hand on his arse and lifting. His legs automatically cling to Harry’s waist and their crotches slot together with layers of cotton in between. His hands are greedy in Harry’s long hair and switch between smoothing it out of his face and grasping it in handfuls. 

“Fuck, you’re so fucking hard,” Louis whines as Harry’s hips insistently rock into his and his head goes dizzy at the hard line of Harry’s cock pressing against him. 

“Can’t wait to be in you,” Harry says between biting kisses. “Fuck, gonna feel so good.” 

Harry shifts away from the wall with his hands planted firmly on Louis’ arse. In a blur of motion Louis’ on the bed facedown, a small bounce before large hands tug at the elastic of his trackies. They pull down with ease and Harry stills behind him.

“Baby,” Harry groans, a gentle hand coming to cup the swell of Louis’ exposed cheek. Harry’s thumb strokes close to his crack and pulls him open. “Fuck, you do this for me? You been thinking of me?” 

“All day,” Louis confirms with a blushing cheek pressed into the pillow while Harry’s other hand joins to fully part his cheeks and his hole throbs in the cold air. He whines and wiggles impatiently, not getting far when Harry’s hands are strong enough to keep him in place. He grits out, “Did it so you could fuck me faster.” 

Harry’s hands keep palming him, a thumb stroking over the slick centre Louis spent a long moment alone eagerly prepping. 

“Like this? Facedown and pretty for me?” 

“Yeah, wanna feel it,” Louis pants, breathless with intoxicating desire.

Harry’s touch disappears for a moment while the bed shifts, the sound of jeans hitting the floor a telling sign of Harry’s nakedness. Earlier Louis left the lube on the nightstand and Harry goes for it now. 

“Nngh,” Louis rocks his hips back to stop Harry from reaching over him, both of them stifling a groan as their bodies rut against each other in the small collision. “No more, m’ good.” 

The first sign of hesitation shows in Harry’s light fingertips at the small of Louis’ back. There’s the thick slide of Harry’s cock on Louis’ arse and he rocks into it without thinking, his eyes rolling back at the feel of it slotting heavily between his cheeks. 

“Don’t wanna hurt you, Lou.” 

Louis let’s reason and Harry’s soothing voice convince him, but he does so with a pout. “Just a little, wanna feel it.” 

Harry drops a kiss to his shoulder as he finishes the reach for the lube. Louis hears the condom wrapper crinkle and the snick of the lube lid as his lower belly clenches in anticipation, the pillow already damp below his face from his breath and tears. His own cock hangs heavy between his legs and begs lightly for friction he doesn’t allow himself, testing his own limits while he waits for the return of Harry’s broad hand on his lower back. 

Harry’s cockhead slides between his cheeks a few times in a delicious foreshadowing glide before Harry holds it still and Louis leans back into the blunt pressure. The air vanishes from his lungs as the first few inches slide in without resistance. Harry’s got big hands and big feet and Louis really should have paid attention to just how fucking big Harry’s dick was going to be because realising it now as it slides unrelentingly home into him is something of a lack of foresight. 

A chain of swears leaves under Louis’ breath as Harry’s balls meet his own. His dick takes up every inch inside Louis to the point he can’t breathe as he listens to Harry’s own panting against his neck. Harry pulls back and takes his first few thrusts. A broad hand cups the crease of Louis’ neck and shoulder while Louis uses every muscle in his body not to collapse under Harry in a puddle of overwhelm. 

Harry’s body is heavy over his, but not so that it crushes him into the sheets, more like it steadies him, keeps him grounded. His cock drives deep into Louis with every thrust, making space where there is none and Louis swears he can feel it in his ribcage. The obnoxious slap of skin against skin keeps him sharply aware of every sound in the room, the grunts Harry lets out between curses and praise and the raggedness of Louis’ own breathing. 

With knees propped just enough on the bed to lift his arse and the stability of his forearms, Louis finds himself in the perfect position to feel every inch of Harry hammering home, has enough purchase to push backwards into Harry’s chest and meet every thrust with his own. As the tempo builds, Harry’s hands lock on Louis’ hips so he can pound in with abandon, leaving Louis with nothing to do but take it. 

“So tight Louis, so fucking perfect. You glow like the fucking sun.”

Harry’s pace slows enough for Louis to catch his breath in wet gasps, his cherry red and completely neglected dick dripping steadily in a teasing trail down his balls and thighs. When he hangs his head he sees himself pulse with a deep set ache. His limbs tremble with exertion. 

“So big inside me,” he murmurs as Harry’s hips pulse slowly against him. 

“You tired baby? Wear yourself out before you even had me?”

Louis buries his face into the side of his own bicep as his cheeks flame. Harry’s rhythm stutters and nearly stops when Louis mutters into his arm.

“Lou?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Louis near wails at the new tortuous slow pace, pulling in his bottom lip to keep it from trembling even though his eyes are already wet. 

Earlier today he’d only wanted to open himself enough to speed up the time between pants off and Harry’s dick in him. He hadn’t meant to come so quickly at the mere thought of Harry finally sinking in deep. His imagination hadn’t been anywhere close to capturing the incredible sensation, but it had been enough for his dick to pulse at the light brush of the sheets and leave him with an ache of sensitivity as Harry fucks him now. 

“Shit.” Harry’s forehead rests between Louis’ shoulder blades and Louis wants to scream with the way Harry stops all movement. The man takes a deep breath along Louis’ back and lets it out in a reverent whisper, “That’s so fucking hot.” 

Louis whines pathetically and clenches around Harry’s cock throbbing inside him, desperate to move. 

“I got you, c’mere,” Harry murmurs. 

His broad hand slides around Louis’ waist, brushing over the sensitive plane of his lower tummy to get a solid hold on Louis’ pliant body. Louis goes easily as Harry sits backwards onto his heels and pulls him into his lap. They end with their bodies tightly pressed together, every expansion of Harry’s chest felt through Louis’ spine. Louis’ mind is an incoherent mess with the way the shift in position has altered how Harry’s dick presses inside him and he’s glad for the moments reprieve they spend there, still but for their slowly syncing breath. 

Harry’s mouth trails to the crease of Louis’ neck and shoulder, right where his hand had held him earlier, and sucks at the sensitive skin. 

“Do you trust me?”

The moments reprieve has given Louis enough clarity to hear the note of sincerity in Harry’s voice, the one that says if Louis told him to pull away right now Harry would listen. It makes his heart trip over itself more than any sex ever could. 

“Yes,” Louis says, using enough strength to make sure it comes out certain, confident. Exactly the way he feels. 

Harry’s hands rub over his thighs, his voice unbearably low with the depth of his arousal. 

“Can I lift you?” 

Louis’ chest seizes with the thought. But it’s more from the memory of the last time he’d allowed himself to be lifted in the air and trusted someone to set him back on his feet. He’d never felt more out of control than he had for those mere seconds. Now though, with Harry’s solid muscle wrapped around him, he realises it’s not fear that has his heart racing. It’s excitement. Because he does trust Harry, and the longer Louis thinks about it the more he wants to know what it would feel like to let himself be handled by someone he trusts. 

He licks his lips and grinds down into Harry’s lap with a groan. Harry’s teeth nip at his neck with his own stifled sound of pleasure. 

“Yeah, please, I- Yes.” He fumbles through words and Harry’s hands stroke over his sides and down his legs with a claiming touch. 

“Thank fuck,” Harry mutters into the hairline on Louis’ neck and perhaps he wasn’t meant to hear it but Louis’ secretly pleased to know just how much Harry wants this too. 

Harry scoops him by the back of his knees, lifting Louis in a single showcase of strength. Louis’ knees fold tightly into his chest, Harry’s hands and the support of his torso the only thing keeping him upright. Slowly Harry lowers him on his thick cock. 

Louis gasps, one hand gripping the muscled forearm holding his legs immobile against his chest as he adjusts to the incomparable feeling of being completely in Harry’s mercy. His other hand reaches backwards to tangle in Harry’s hair. 

His dick is tucked between his stomach and legs, completely unreachable and maddeningly stimulated by the jostle of Harry raising and lowering him onto his dick. Louis knocks his head onto Harry’s shoulder as he makes little sounds of distressed pleasure. Folded in half and cradled to Harry’s chest like this makes Harry’s already fucking massive cock feel larger. Louis’ half convinced he’s literally choking on it from how deep it feels. 

Harry’s hips start to dive upwards to meet him, his breath growing laboured after an incredible show of stamina. 

“You’re so good around me, being so good letting me fuck you like this,” Harry presses into Louis’ sweaty temple. 

“Harry, ah fuck, Harry,” Louis chants, not sure if he’s goading Harry closer to his finish or begging for his own. 

Harry lowers him on his cock one last time and leaves him there, stuffed full while Harry groans into his neck. Louis’ dick twitches against his stomach at the pulse of Harry’s cock coming inside him. 

Harry’s slow to shift them to their sides and ease out of Louis’ puffy sensitive hole. Louis finally wraps a hand around his aching dick, hardly noticing Harry duck away to deal with the condom past the bliss of direct friction.

He gets a few quick and rough strokes laying flat on his back before Harry returns, easily moving into the place between Louis’ legs.

“Lemme,” Harry murmurs and replaces Louis’ hand with his own, the instant glide no doubt from the lube Harry graciously coated his palm with. 

Louis keens into it, letting Harry stretch over him to put an arm down over Louis’ shoulder to prop himself up while the other works Louis over. Louis lets his hands wander over the glorious bare skin of Harry’s body above him and uses Harry’s neck to suck and pant against as the arousal inside him coils tighter every time Harry’s rough thumb pads at the underside of his cockhead. 

“Wanna see you come for me.” 

Harry’s mouth is everywhere, nipping at Louis’ ear and sucking on his neck and kissing his parted lips. Louis’ legs tighten around Harry’s waist as he squeezes his eyes shut, his mouth wide in shock as he’s finally tipped over the edge. 

Harry strokes him through it, eyes watching Louis with rapture. Louis’ been centre ice in arenas across the globe, and yet he’s never felt more avidly watched than under Harry. Slowly they come down with lungs heaving and eyes glassy. 

They settle together on their sides, neither in a rush to clean up. Instead Louis takes the moment to catalogue the curve of Harry’s nose, the exact placement of his beauty mark, the slant of his eyebrows. The shine in his eyes as they meet. 

Louis wants it all. Wants it every day until forever. 

“Harry,” Louis says the moment he has enough breath to. 

Harry hums in acknowledgement while his hand gently smooths back the hair from Louis’ face. 

“We’re gonna make this work.”

Harry’s face goes slack with shock before it splits into a smile brighter than the sun. Louis makes sure to scan over every detail of Harry’s sweaty, messy face so he can have this memory locked into his mind. He dips in for a quick kiss, their warm mouths meeting softly. 

“Hey Louis,” Harry whispers into the millimetres of space between them.

Now it’s Louis’ turn to hum, a gentle warmth in his chest for the beautiful human being next to him. 

“I love you.”

⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ⋆*+･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*･ﾟ+.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

**Author's Note:**

> Hope the person who sent in this prompt enjoyed the story! 
> 
> Check out my other BLFF fic [Spoonful of Sugar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555952)  
> Find posts, pictures, and playlists for this fic on my tumblr [@zanniscaramouche](https://zanniscaramouche.tumblr.com/)
> 
> fic posts: [x](https://zanniscaramouche.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-edge)
> 
> ✨💕 Please let me know what you thought and felt in a comment. xx 💕✨


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